


Jewellery for Beth Johanssen

by guineapiggie



Category: The Martian (2015), The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Baby Names, David Bowie - Freeform, Domestic Fluff, Experimental Style, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Depression, Inspired by Music, Marriage Proposal, Moving In Together, Nightmares, Romance, Space Oddity, Texting, because Ares III group chat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-07-16 15:23:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7273501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guineapiggie/pseuds/guineapiggie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beth Johanssen finds something in a drawer.<br/>Chris Beck is waiting for a sign and generally in over his head.<br/>Melissa Lewis is on a mission.<br/>Mark Watney never sleeps at his own place.</p><p>(one year after the landing, the ARES III crew is still trying to settle back into life on earth.)</p><p>Flashbacks-to-mission galore</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flowers and Take-out

Beth lets the door fall shut behind them and throws her jacket onto a drawer in the corner. Lewis smiles at Beth's casually spreading her usual mess in Chris's apartment (something tells her he doesn't mind as much as he always says he does), and makes a point of hanging her own jacket on a hook at the wall.

"Chris? I brought company."

"Tell me it's not Mark," comes Beck's voice from the kitchen, and Lewis can't help another smile at the equally annoyed and affectionate tone of his voice.

Beth rolls her eyes at Lewis. "It's Melissa. What's for dinner?"

He turns up in the doorway to the kitchen, throws his former commander a smile and hands Johannsen a glass, his grin turning slightly sheepish. "Um... take-out. And an apology drink for being a lazy-ass boyfriend?"

"I don't mind," she gives back with a smirk, taking a sip from her drink. "Your drinks are way better than your cooking." She laughs and puts her glass down on the table. "I'll get another plate for Melissa."

"Hey. Rude!" he calls after her, shaking his head and throwing Lewis an apologetic grin. "Not a lie, though."

She smiles. "Can't be worse than NASA food."

"Not worse than _Beth's_ cooking either," he replies with a laugh, "but sure doesn't beat the Thai joint round the corner."

"Pretty sure she didn't chose you for your skills in the kitchen," Lewis answers.

He raises a brow and beckons her to take a seat.

"Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting, Commander?" he asks with a brazen grin on his face and opens a cupboard. "Wine?"

"Red, please, and I have no idea what you're talking about." Oh Jeez, sometimes she really feels like babysitting teenagers. Not in a bad way, necessarily.

The flowers on the table look a little worse for wear, but they make her grin. She's positive Beth wouldn't bother with flowers. Mark clearly didn't lie when he said their doctor was going domestic on them.

"If anyone wants to hear my opinion," Beth comes back with takeaway boxes and cutlery balanced dangerously on a third dinner plate, "his cooking skills don't speak for him, but he does make a killer coffee."

"Coming from Beth, that might be the highest compliment ever paid to you, Beck."

He has the presence of mind to laugh at that, but she knows him well enough to spot the spark of pride in his eyes. It probably _is_ a declaration of love, coming from the caffeine-addicted Johanssen.

She makes a mental note to ask him where he got the ring, because honestly, there is no way in the world he hasn't bought one yet.

"How's Robert?" Beth asks, piling food on Melissa's plate.

"Good. Glad to have his wife back, meaning _I_ get great home-made food. You know, he had a lot of practice while we were gone."

"Where's the corkscrew?" comes Beck's voice from the kitchen.

"I don't know."

"You had it, and there's no chance I'll find any item that was last seen in your hands, Beth."

She rolls her eyes again. Lewis missed that about her. "Try the couch table."

"I cleaned that off to have _some_ space to put my laptop on. It wasn't there."

"Bedroom?"

He pokes his head out of the door. "What do you _do_ when I work late?"

"Hey. I can empty a bottle over a book any time I want to."

Something tells Lewis that's not quite what Beck was thinking off. He makes his way up the steps, muttering "A _bottle_?"

"I'm a big girl, please don't lecture me on the finer points of liver failure. Again."

Lewis makes a mental note to ask about that, too.

He comes back with the corkscrew triumphantly held up and opens the bottle. "So, Melissa. What have you been up to? Does Mark hang around your place a lot? Because he's invading ours. I found a _sock_ of his under the sofa.”

"Give him a break," Johanssen mutters, throwing him a reprimanding glance. He sighs.

"Yeah. I know. You know I don't mean that."

Another mental note. She needs to get Chris on his own, one of these days.

"He did spend two days on my couch last week," Melissa says, trying to steer the conversation away from the touchy subject. "Had to fight over it with the dog, though."

"That's right, Robert's dog. How's he warming up to you?"

"Oh, he's all cuddles and smearing dirt all over my pants, I just haven't warmed up to the poor beast being called _Pluto_."

Beth laughs. "It is a cheesy name. But it kinda suits him."

"Beth's got a crush on your puppy," Beck says through a mouthful of noodles, and Johanssen rolls her eyes at him.

"He's over a year old now, Beck, that's not a puppy. Besides, I really don't need a dog. I already got someone who looks at me like a kicked puppy when he doesn't get his way." She throws him a pointed look, but there's still a hint of a smile on her lips.

Melissa smiles. She's missed these two.

"Haha. Did you hear of Vogel lately, Melissa? We've been trying to get ahold of him, but you know, time zones and all, we only got a couple of e-mails out of him."

"He sent a picture of his kids, dressed up for the European Cup. They seem to be just as soccer-obsessed as he is."

Beck smirks. "Yeah. We better keep tabs on those games, or he'll hate us forever."

"True," Melissa says. "I sent him an invitation for Rob's birthday, but I'm not sure if he got it yet. You two will come, right?"

"Was not coming an option?" Beck asks, feigning surprise.

"Absolutely not. Wear something nice."

"Yes ma'am," he says, raising his hand to salute, and pours her more wine.


	2. The Demon Keeper

"How've you been?" She hugs him a little tighter than she probably should. "You look tired."

"Nah, all good. I've been to med school, I've looked worse than this."

"I'm still buying you a coffee. Come on. No discussion."

"Wouldn't dream of it, commander," he mutters with a smile. "I only got an hour and a half, though. Then I gotta get my samples out of the warming cupboard, my colleague's kind of weird about that. You know, like he _constantly_ needs that thing." He rolls his eyes. She wonders if he's done that as much before he met Beth.

"Well, then come on."

They went to that coffee shop a couple of times before their launch. It feels a little strange, to be there now. She wonders if they remodelled, or if it just looks different to her.

Chris seems to ponder the same, his easy smile looks a little lopsided.

.

"This is so good," Chris mutters, taking a long sip from his coffee (two extra shots of espresso and what were, if she counted correctly, six spoonful of sugar). "Sometimes I think I missed decent coffee the most."

Lewis shakes her head. "Uh-huh, goes to prove you didn't have as much to miss as the rest of us. But I'm glad to see you and Johanssen are on the same page about your beverages."

Beck smiles. "Beth doesn't fuck around when it comes to coffee."

"Speaking of..." she takes a sip of her coffee, not necessarily excited about asking that question, "what was that about the wine, when I was at your place?"

"'bout the wine?" he repeats, and she can't help but think he's not even trying.

"C'mon, Chris. Tell me."

He shrugs and idly spins his cup on the table with one finger. "It's nothing, really. She doesn't... it's not like she drinks or anything, it's not..."

"Then what is it?"

He throws her a pained smile. "It's me. She says I worry too much, which is a decidedly too nice way of calling me a control freak."

She leans back in her chair and waits for him to go on. It doesn't take a lot of waiting - he seems to have sat on this for quite a while.

"It's... just so you know, we're really good. Happy like crazy, honestly. We both knew this whole Mars thing would take a toll on us. With or without the whole ordeal of having to double back for our botanist, and it's not like we can't take it. I mean, we're in this together. We got damn lucky, and we know that, and I never questioned I'd hold up..." He stares into his coffee cup. "And then she calls me when I'm working through the night, at four fifteen, and says she just wanted to hear my voice, and when I ask what that was about the next morning she says it's nothing. And then I go to Zurich for a week on a conference - I'm not gonna pretend I sleep too well on my own these days, but... she calls me again and it's the middle of the night here, and then again when I'm out with my old friends from school, and I never get her to tell me what's going on." He sighs and empties his coffee cup, pulling a face when he realises it's gone cold.

"Two or three months ago, I... I'd got up to get a glass of water-"

Lewis grimaces. _So much for you sleeping without problem, Dr Beck_.

"She wasn't really sleeping quiet, but that's not new, so I didn't think much of it. When I came back, she'd woken up, and she was _hysterical_. I thought she might hyperventilate and pass out, and I was not much help, great doctor that I am. Shit, she scared me half to death. Took ages to calm her down. She had to tell me then." He throws her that pained smile again. "And I get worried about her all the time and I know it's gotta be driving her insane, she's not a _child_. But I just keep hearing her, telling me she dreamt we were all dead, you know, that we took those pills, and, _God_ Melissa, you didn't see her face."

He looks pale, she thinks, shaken. These two. They break her heart.

"Happened to me once, couple of nights after we landed, I had a nightmare like that and I woke up and I was all alone and I couldn't tell if it was a dream or not and that was one of the worst night of my life. I just... hate to think I could be doing the same to her, and then I keep asking myself what she does to get rid of those dreams when I'm not around..." He laughs.

"It's _sick_ , God, listen to me."

"No," she says, softly, and wipes her eyes as covertly as she can. "Not at all, Chris. Oh God. Did we do this to her?"

He grimaces and there's a bitter kind of laugh in his voice. "Wanna know how often I asked myself that question?"

 _Oh God._ It had been an emergency plan, maybe she shouldn't have told Beth about it at all. It was such a messed-up idea, and luckily they never had to use it, but of course that thought wouldn't leave Johanssen's mind too soon.

 _Okay_. She needs to process that. Time to get to topic two in the meantime.

"Mark still crashing on your couch?"

"Uh-huh. Ruined a couple of plans we had. But it's not like we can throw him out."

"How's he holding up?"

"Considering what he's been through, fabulous," Chris mutters darkly. "I like to tell myself he's having his episodes less frequent, but I'm not sure if I just want to think that."

Lewis tries to swallow the lump in her throat. "You don't think he would... that he would try to..."

Chris goes back to playing with his cup. "I don't know. I don't think so. Mark isn't... I don't think he's suicidal, and most of the time he's doing great, but... I don't know. Keeps me awake at night, thinking what happens if... if I'm wrong. I mean, I'm his doctor, I'm _all_ your doctor, and what if he does something and I didn't see it?"

"Chris. You can't take all that on you. It's too much to carry for just one person," Melissa says softly, but he shakes his head.

"It _is_ on me. It just _is._ And I... It's killing me. I should _help,_ and instead I get to just stand there and watch, and there's nothing I can do, it's just... it drives me crazy."

"You can't fight our demons for us, Chris," she says and tries for a smile. "Maybe try and tackle your own?"

He returns her smile for a moment, then it fades from his lips. "Oh shit. Melissa... did Beth ask you to talk to me?"

"No. But she's worrying about you. She thinks you're hiding your own problems, fussing about Mark."

"Hey, _I_ didn't get stuck on Mars. I have a right to fuss."

"Chris." Lewis sighs. "Seriously. You gotta get your act together and try and sleep through the night, if you want to go through with that jewellery."

"Sorry what?" The surprised look on his face is convincing, the innocent look in his blue eyes is definitely not.

She almost laughs. "Come on. I know you bought a ring."

He raises a brow at her. "What gave me away?"

This actually makes her laugh. "Oh give me a break, Beck. I know you. I saw the look on your face when she walked away from you when we landed, and it was a matter of time from that moment on. And everything you just told me, you two are stuck with each other."

"Yeah, we got scarily co-dependent," he replies with half a smile.

"You passed the test. I mean, you were crammed into a ridiculously small space for a very long time, and you're still not sick of each other. Don't try to lie to me, Beck. I know everything." She smiles. "What keeps you waiting?"

He shrugs. "We were kind of forced into a lot of commitment already. No offence. Commander."

"You don't wanna rush it, but you already bought a ring?"

He throws her a sheepish smile. "Right... doesn't quite add up, does it?"

"You don't seriously think there's any chance in hell she doesn't say yes?" she asks with a mild smile, and he grimaces.

"It's Beth. I never really pegged her for the marrying type."

"It's _you_. I wouldn't worry."

He nods, then realisation dawns on his face, and this time he's really laughing, running a hand through his hair. "Oh God, okay. Spill. When did she find it?"

"Well, I _really_ knew before she did. But seriously, in a jacket pocket?"

"Hey. It was the sweater at the bottom of the stack. It wasn't a bad hiding place."

She throws him a reprehensive look. "She stole your clothes when you were trying to keep your affair a _secret_ , you really thought she wouldn't happen across one of your sweater jackets?"

He shrugs, but there’s a grin twitching around his lips. "I never saw her wear it."

She grins. "Your sappy romance streak is rubbing off on her, Beck. She got it out last week, when you went to visit your parents."

"So that's where my clothes disappear to when I'm gone," he says with a smile and shakes his head. "Gotta say, I did not expect her to get that sentimental." He looks rather proud of himself.

"Chris. Listen to me. I was worried at first that I made the wrong call, letting the two of you keep your thing going, but... I did the right thing. You're good with each other. And the problems you have, they'll keep you busy, but they're not gonna keep you apart. You will need time to sort yourselves out. That shouldn't keep you waiting."

He nods. "Thanks, Melissa." He leans back in his chair and grins. "So she called you when she found it?"

"Yeah. And I'm _not_ going to repeat anything she said, but you should man up. Might even stop Mark from getting on your nerves about that."

"Mark is not the problem. You should hear Rick."

"He _is_ catholic, you know" she answers with a laugh. "You two are living in sin. The pope wouldn’t approve."

He buries his face in his hands in mock despair. "That joke was already bad when _Rick_ made it."

.

She hugs him goodbye outside the shop. "I expect to hear from the two of you by the end of the month, Beck."

He looks at her with a rather alarmed look in his blue eyes.

"Commander, that's next Tuesday."

She grins and walks away with slightly lighter steps. "Exactly."


	3. mission accomplished

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> forgive the inconsistent layout. I guess I just gave up at some point...

**Melissa Lewis**

[Saturday]

_[10:42 PM] -Chris Beck_

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

 

_[10:57 PM] -Melissa Lewis_

OH MY GOD!!! Good on you!

Congratulations!

 

* * *

 

**Ares III**

[Saturday]

_[11:28 PM] -Chris Beck_

One more thing knocked off the bucket list ^^

 

_[11:30 PM] -no more potatoes_

What would you win a Nobel Prize for, Beck?

 

_[11:31 PM] - Chris Beck_

That's probably on your list, but it ain't on mine. (not that you **could** win it,  
*cough* botanist)

 

_[11:32] -Chris Beck_

*insert overly smug grin here*

 

_[11:34 PM] -Chris Beck_

Also, could you be a little more cryptic, Chris... (this is Beth)

 

_[11:36 PM] -no more potatoes_

Yeah, give us a hint, man. Does it beat going to  
Mars?

 

_[11:37 PM] -Chris Beck_

Kind of does, yes

 

_[11:37 PM] -Chris Beck_

I see through your subtle attempt at flattery

 

_[11:37 PM] -Chris Beck_

I mean that. Stop stealing my phone!!

 

_[11:38 PM] - Chris Beck_

What's yours is mine :P (How's that for a clue?)

 

_[11:39 PM] -no more potatoes_

NOOOOOOOO OMG YOU DIDN'T

 

_[11:40 PM] -rmartinez_

um what am I not getting?

 

_[11:40 PM] -no more potatoes_

I want confirmation, stat! Is this what I  
think it is?!

 

_[11:41 PM] -rmartinez_

Mark help me out buddy what's going on?

 

_[11:42 PM] -Melissa Lewis_

You're late to the party, gents ;)

 

_[11:45 PM] -no more potatoes_

THEY TOLD YOU BEFORE ME?!?!?!?!?

 

_[11:47 PM] -Chris Beck_

Believe it or not, our life does not entirely revolve around you, Watney.

 

_[11:48 PM] -Melissa Lewis_

Put them out of their misery.

 

_[11:49 PM] -Chris Beck_

But this is so much fun!

 

_[11:49 PM] -Melissa Lewis_

That's an order, Beck.

 

_[11:52 PM] -Chris Beck_

Fine... You all get to congratulate me on talking Beth into wearing jewellery.

 

_[11:52 PM] -rmartinez_

... hang on. HANG ON-

 

_[11:53 PM] -Chris Beck_

Fucking expensive jewellery, just sayin'.

 

_[11:53 PM] -rmartinez_

WTF YOU DID NOT!

 

_[11:54 PM] -Chris Beck_

*sigh* Way to kill the mood, chris. (at least he's got taste...)

_(with picture of Beth's left hand with a fine silver ring)_

 

_[11:54 PM] -no more potatoes_

SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT! ABOUT  
FUCKING TIME!!!!!!

 

_[11:54 PM] -rmartinez_

I DON'T BELIEVE IT WHY THE HELL DOES  
NOBODY TELL ME A THING CHRIS I'M  
WOUNDED

 

_[11:54 PM] -rmartinez_

also guuuyyys so proud of you!!!!!!

 

_[11:55 PM] -no more potatoes_

FUCKING HELL DID YOU HAVE TO SHOVE IT  
INOT MY FACE LIKE THAT I HAD A FCUKING  
HEART ATTACK

 

_[11:56 PM] -Chris Beck_

Um I did play the whole guessing game with you?

 

_[11:57 PM]  -rmartinez_

ladies and gentlemen Christopher Beck has  
seen the light

 

_[11:58 PM] -Chris Beck_

whatever Rick

 

_[11:58 PM] -Chris Beck_

he means thank you

 

_[11:58 PM] -rmartinez_

I GONNA BURST OH MY GOD LOOK AT OUR LIL SPACE KIDS!!! gotta go  
tell the wife hope she won't be pissed I woke her

 

_[11:58 PM] -Melissa Lewis_

Mark, this is Chris we're talking about. The only reason to have a heart  
attack was if he WASN'T about to ask. He's the most embarrassingly  
romantic person I've ever met in my life.

 

_[11:59 PM] -Chris Beck_

I'm just gonna pretend that sounds like a compliment to me, so thank  
you Melissa

 

[Today]

 

_[0:02 AM] -no more potatoes_

That reminds me - Beth. You have to tell me. Was there crying?

 

_[0:02 AM] - no more potatoes_

Oooh there was wasn't there?

 

_[0:03 AM] -no more potatoes_

Bethy Jo don't leave me hanging

 

_[0:04 AM] -no more potatoes_

Beeeeeeeth I will keep calling you until you tell me

 

_[0:06 AM] -Chris Beck_

Shut the fuck up, Watney

 

_[0:07 AM] -no more potatoes_

That's all the answer I need ^^ ain't gonna let you live this one  
down. EVER.

 

_[0:08 AM] -rmartinez_

update: wife not pissed, I'd describe situation but hear for yourself  
(WARNING it'll destroy your eardrums)

_*sound message*_

 

_[0:08 AM] -Melissa Lewis_

I disagree with Mark. Requesting details (I'm not curious about your  
reaction Beck it's not like we don't all know exactly what that looked  
like)

 

_[0:09 AM] -no more potatoes_

we do and that's an image I'll take to the grave

 

_[0:11 AM] -rmartinez_

update: wife's squealing woke kids. Kids are tired and v confused,  
but happy for you.

 

_[0:12 AM] -Chris Beck_

say hi to rest of Martinez clan for us!

Sweet of them :)

 

_[0:12 AM] -Melissa Lewis_

Johanssen details stat

 

_[0:12 AM] -rmartinez_

update: dog also very excited, possibly  
because of the noise

 

_[0:13 AM] -Chris Beck_

MERCY, COMMANDER

 

_[0:13 AM] -Chris Beck_

Don't make me type it out, Melissa (and don't make Chris type it 'cause that wold  
take til Christmas...) Dinner tomorrow, Italian? We might buy you guys  
champagne if you insist

 

_[0:15 AM] -Chris Beck_

Elizabeth, you DO know what I make with NASA?

 

_[0:16 AM] -no more potatoes_

You're gonna be broke soon anyway buddy ^^

 

_[0:18 AM] -Chris Beck_

don't ruin a perfectly good evening, Mark

 

_[0:19 AM] -rmartinez_

believe me when I tell you it's true *lol*

 

_[0:20 AM] -Melissa Lewis_

you guys are cruel. Leave the poor man alone, he's had a rough day.

Would love dinner. Do I get to bring Robert? He'd pay for his own  
food ^^

 

_[0:25 AM] -Chris Beck_

I was joking, bring your husband. Rick, wanna bring  
Marissa?

 

_[0:25 AM] -Chris Beck_

You're so brave.

 

_[0:26 AM] -Chris Beck_

Hey. Why am I the target of the day?

 

_[0:27 AM] -no more potatoes_

Because you made us all wait too long for this day and you totes  
got weepy over it, Beck.

 

_[0:27 AM] -no more potatoes_

Looking forward to having the gang back together!

 

_[0:28 AM] -Melissa Lewis_

Me too! Again, congratulations, we're so happy for you two :)

 

_[0:30 AM] -Melissa Lewis_

(even though the gang is one short :/ but at least now Alex is gonna  
HAVE to come visit ^^)

 

_[0:31 AM] -rmartinez_

Can't wait! Place & time?

 

_[0:34 AM] -Chris Beck_

Our old Italian, say 8 PM?

 

_[0:35 AM] -rmartinez_

Will do. @Chris do I bring flowers for the lady?

 

_[0:35 AM] -Chris Beck_

????

 

_[0:36 AM] -rmartinez_

Not sure she's a flower person.

 

_[0:38 AM] -Chris Beck_

You know she's reading this?

 

_[0:38 AM] -rmartinez_

Just answer the question, Beck

 

_[0:40 AM] -Chris Beck_

..... you better bring some fucking spectacular  
flowers, Rick.

 

_[0:42 AM] -Chris Beck_

Bring us a wine, I don't want plants. I'm not Watney.

_[0:44 AM] -rmartinez_

Copy that, Johanssen.

 

_[0:45 AM] -no more potatoes_

... oh man, you're really gonna make that  
BETH BECK? Oh my god that's fucking hilarious.

 

_[0:48 AM] -Chris Beck_

Think that's all I can take for the night...  
See you guys tomorrow. I don't know why,  
but I still look forward to seeing you all.

 

_[0:52 AM] -Chris Beck_

Dream on, Watney. Keeping my name.

 

_[0:55 AM] -rmartinez_

Probably for the best. You two sleep well ^^

 

_[0:59 AM] -no more potatoes_

Ugh thanks buddy. Now I'm gonna have nightmares.

.

.

 

_[2:47 AM] -spacebird_

Really, I wake up with 89 new messages,  
what is going on in the US that I haven't  
heard about?

 

_[2:55 AM] -spacebird_

ICH FASS ES NICHT, ALLES GUTE!!!  
GLÜCKWUNSCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't believe it, wow, that is great, so happy  
for you two!!! Unbelievable you let me sleep  
through all of this, though! Lots of love from  
Helena and the kids, absolutely let us know  
the date, we're going to be there!

 

.

 

_[8:53 AM] -Chris Beck_

Thank you Alex! You'll be the first to know.

 

_[8:56 AM] -Chris Beck_

@Mark & Rick How old are you again?!

 

 

 


	4. Vacuum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... Chronological order is just not really known to me, so have a flashback/flashforward songfic, why not?

 

 

 

He's seen Beth Johanssen in a lot of states, positions and circumstances - he's made a point of that. Literally made a point of that, sneaking around the training area and half of Houston and this thrice-damned space station at every free minute, looking to accidentally-on-purpose bump into his crewmate.

He couldn't help it. Beth is driving him crazy, always has.

She's clever, definitely smarter than him, possibly the smartest of all of them, and has a focus and a determination when it comes to her work to rival his own - which is nothing he's ever expected to find in a woman, or anyone really, but in the end that's probably what you get working with NASA.

She's beautiful, and he took weeks and months to figure out whether she doesn't know that or if she just doesn't care (and even now he makes sure to whisper that into her ear every time he gets the chance, he's still not quite sure if he knows).

Also, there's that total calm she has about things - he's hardly ever seen her angry, never totally upset. Shocked, yes, devastated even, when they lost Mark, but never in a way that made him worry she was going to do something impulsive.

(Unlike him. Lately, he feels like every goddamn emotion he has makes him do something really violently stupid.)

Which is why he knows something is very much off when he finds her sitting in her bunk with what he recognises as his MP3-player, earphones plugged in and still playing lying on the mattress next to her. It's the middle of the night. Obviously he _has_ expected her to be awake (despite the term _sleeping with someone_ , it's not really what this whole sneaky thing is about, even though he does sleep better in her bed than his own), but he hasn't expected her to be up, lights on and her hair still pulled back.

Her face looks pale and there's something not calm and not familiar in her eyes. He figures she's either really pissed or really close to tears, he can't think of a reason for her to be either one, especially because she's throwing him that death glare like whatever has happened is his fault.

"I would ask how you cracked the passcode, but guess I can save myself the embarrassment."

"Ever heard of the term _asking for it_ , Beck?"

He's pretty sure he's never heard her voice this stone cold, and he Does Not Like it.

"When did we go back to last names again?"

She doesn't move a muscle at that, and he's gotta admit he didn't expect her to.

That girl is stubborn AF. (He's not gonna deny he likes that, too).

He fights down the urge to cross his arms in front of him and sits down on the other end of the mattress. "What's going on?"

She nods towards the MP3-player. He glances down to see his workout playlist.

"I don't get it, Beth."

She holds the earphones up to him without saying a word.

It doesn't take him long to recognise the song - he hasn't had time to update that playlist and he knew the whole goddamn thing by heart after the first month.

"Do you have any fucking sense of tact?" she asks in a quiet, hard voice.

He's floored. This is so uncharacteristic, he'd probably think it was a joke if she wasn't still looking at him like that. "C'mon, Beth, it's just some stupid playlist that's like a year old."

"Like you didn't know you were going to space a year ago."

He groans and gets back to his feet. He is nowhere near awake enough for this. This is so not the Johanssen he knows.

"Beth. It's just a song. It's work-out music... Why do I have to defend myself, I... Hell, I guess I was drunk when I made that playlist and probably figured it was funny... you're really gonna be mad at me about a _song_?"

" _Funny?_ " she repeats, still looking at him in that cold way. "Funny? After what happened to Mark? It's fucking macabre is what."

"I'm not a goddamn clairvoyant, Beth."

Her eyes flash at him. "You're our EVA guy and you spend your free time listening to a song about a guy lost in space? After we _already_ lost someone in space?"

"Keep it down, Beth, you wanna wake Lewis?" he whispers.

Something is starting to dawn on him. This isn't really about inappropriate humour, or about luck.

It’s Mark. It’s space, the infinite vacuum right outside the glass panes.

She must've been pretty desperate to get it out of her system if she gets this worked up over a song, but this can't have come out of thin air.

Goddamn it, he knew she doesn't take things as well as she pretends she does.

" You know my jokes are terrible. C'mon. I meant nothing by it. And, for the record, we didn't _lose_ someone in space, we... we kinda misplaced him. We're getting Mark back, baby. We _are_."

Her eyes are fixed on his, and there is something sort of angry and soft and... kind of _lost_ in them.

It pains him just seeing her like that, but on the bright side he finally knows how to deescalate this.

"Gimme that thing."

She hands it over to him with a frown.

"Let me just... here. Delete the fucking song. Happy now?"

She sighs and slumps a little. "I'll be, when we all get our feet back on the ground. I can't believe I just said that," she says suddenly, shaking her head in confusion. "Oh God. I want to go to space half my life and now I actually said "I'll be happy when we're all back on the ground"? Oh my God."

"I know," he mutters. "Guess that's what happens when you leave a guy behind on fucking mars."

She bites her lip and turns her eyes to the MP3-player in his hands. "Yeah. I guess."

"Hey." He puts it down on the floor and edges closer to her. "We're getting him back."

"I know," she mutters, leaning her head against his shoulder. "But I think I'm gonna need you to tell me that a couple more times anyway."

"Happy to oblige," he puts an arm around her and pulls her closer, "but I didn't really see myself doing a lot of talking tonight."

"Careful, doctor, or you'll sleep in your own bed," she gives back with a smirk.

"That threat would be so much more effective if I could actually sleep here without Lewis killing me."

"Smartass."

He grins. "I can take that."

 

 

He's all but forgotten about it, when the next reparations are due.

When he comes back through the airlock, he realises she hasn't.

He's hardly out of the suit, Vogel's gone up ahead since there's nothing wrong, and before he knows it, someone's wrapped their arms around him so tightly it knocks the air right out of him.

"I _hate_ you. I fucking _hate_ you."

He's almost surprised she has that much strength in her. She's so tiny.

"Beth. _Beth_." It's damn hard pushing her off him, God knows she's all he wants after three hours all alone in literal nothingness, but he does. "What are you doing, _they could come round the corner any moment_ ," he mutters into her ear and puts her on her feet.

"Giving a colleague a hug who's just been in actual outer space?" she gives back in a quiet kind of voice and puts away the suit for him.

He grimaces. "It's not like I don't _want_ you all over me, Johanssen, it's just that you can't be _in plain damn view_. Lewis will _kill_ us."

He glances back at her, she's avoiding his eyes, then sighs and pushes his hands down his pockets. _God, what I'd give to just be a regular guy with a regular goddamn girlfriend right now._

"Sorry. Shit, I'm sorry. 'm tired, I didn't mean to -"

"Dr. Beck?"

_Speak of the devil._

He tries to put up an inconspicuous face that probably looks guilty as hell and turns to Lewis. "Yes, commander?"

Lewis throws the both of them a strange glance (he really tries not to think of it as _knowing_ , she can't have seen it, she _can't_ , and even _if_ she has it was nothing... _yeah, don't kid yourself, if she's seen it we're screwed_ ), then proceeds to talk about something or another he doesn't have the presence of mind to pay any attention to.

"Sorry, commander. Dead on my feet. Come again?"

 

 

He's so damn tired that night he falls into his own bunk an hour before everyone else, not before Lewis expressively orders him out of the lab, and is out cold before he knows it.

He doesn't even wake up until she crawls underneath the covers.

"Hey," he says groggily, making space for her (luckily, it's not like she needs a lot). "What time is it?"

"Like, in Houston? Midnight, I guess."

"I would've woken up eventually."

She presses a kiss to his shoulder. "Sure. Anytime next week."

"Hey. 'm hard working, I deserve a _few_ hours of sleep every now and then."

She doesn't answer and curls up against his side, her hair tickling his neck.

"I didn't get to ask why you hate me," he murmurs, pulling her closer.

For a moment, he thinks she's fallen asleep, then her fingers tighten around his upper arm until he feels her fingernails digging into his skin.

"Because you don't know how long three hours are when you've got _fucking_ "Space Oddity" playing nonstop in your head."

Her voice is so quiet, and lacks all the snark he's come to know.

"Shit," he whispers and turns over to face her. Those big brown eyes of her will be the death of him. He can't withstand them for a second. They break his heart. "Look, I'm fine. This stuff is as safe as it gets, and I'm careful."

"Right."

"I _am_ careful, you don't have to worry about me."

"Don't think I wouldn't be worried about any of the others."

"Uh-huh, keep telling yourself that, Beth."

"How are you still such a jerk when you're not even really awake?" She laughs a little. He can't resist kissing her and is very relieved indeed when she buries her fingers in his hair and returns the kiss. Not _that_ pissed, then.

"You know, I wouldn't risk anything out there," he mutters against her lips. "I got goals."

"Yeah, like what?"

"I wanna see Beth Johanssen in her natural habitat," he gives back, quoting Mark which stings more than he thought it would. "I wanna fall asleep not worrying about whether or not I'll wake up in the right bed to keep my job, you know, that'd be pretty awesome. And you know, I just... I wanna go back home."

 _I wanna go back home_ with you.

Might be a little early to drop that on her. He'll keep that to himself for now. It's not like there's a rush, they’ll be on this goddamn space station for a while longer and he has all the time in the world to make that happen.

"Okay, that falling asleep bit sounds pretty sweet," she mutters and kisses him again. "I'm glad you're okay. But you're still a jerk."

"Right. Love you too," he mutters into her hair.

"Yeah?"

She's smiling, he can hear that. He's thought he'll get used to it, but it doesn't look like the surge of pride is ever going to ebb off.

"You seriously gonna tell me you don't know that?"

"Mh. Like to hear it."

"Tomorrow," he mutters, deciding keeping his eyes open is fighting a losing battle. "Good night."

"I'm gonna dream about that fucking song, and when I do, I'll wake you, Beck, you will suffer from this too," she whispers after a moment.

He buries his nose deeper in her hair. "That's fair."

She doesn't wake him, though, and it's the last time she ever mentions it.

* * *

 

> _Though I'm fast one hundred thousand miles_  
>  _I'm feeling very still_  
>  _and I think my spaceship knows which way to go  
>  _ _tell my wife I love her very much, she knows_
> 
> _Ground Control to Major Tom, you're circuit's dead,_  
>  _there's something wrong_  
>  _Can you hear me, Major Tom?  
>  _ _Can you hear me, Major Tom?  
>  _ _Can you hear -_
> 
> -              Space Oddity, David Bowie (1969)

 

* * *

**[26 months later]**

 

Mark manages to pick _the exact song_. Chris should've known, really, God knows he and Watney share that streak of black humour, so it shouldn't have come as any sort of surprise.

(This is Mark, the guy who somehow managed to sneak the love theme from Star Wars into their wedding ceremony. They should have braced themselves for  _all_ the space puns long before this.)

Typical. Nice small venue, closest family and friends, handful of embarrassing speeches about his not-so-subtle crush on Beth, goddamn David Bowie from the speakers before midnight.

What other kind of wedding could they've ever had?

Beth notices before he does - he's a little drunk and he feels like he's high, all in all he really doubts he would've ever noticed - but she grips his hand so tightly he thinks she'll break his fingers.

"You never stopped thinking of that song, did you?"

She grimaces up at him. "Told you. Happy when we get our feet back on solid ground."

The curls in her hair are straightening out again. He strokes a strand back behind her ear. "Are you?"

"Happy?" She grins and her finger rubs over the band on his left hand. "Yeah. Thanks for not screwing up in outer space."

He laughs. Kind of strange how they can joke about this now, but he's grateful they can. "Told _you_. I wouldn't have. I wanted to go back home with you."

"Look at us, getting what we want." Beth grins. "Think we can skip the rest of the party? Ideally before Lewis starts picking the music."

He shrugs and glances at the rest of the crew, sitting around a table and trading stories in slurred, loud voices, all with the same grin on their faces.

"You know, it's _our_ party, and they look like they'll be okay without us."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah. David Bowie.  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> I'm not that sorry, really.


	5. Saturday Night

There’s something wrong with the accelerator. There has to be. She hates this stupid car.

Watney told her the Chevy didn’t have long, back during training. Chris said that it sounded like someone with terminal TB and Martinez never stopped shaking his head about her selling her apartment but keeping a seventeen year-old car.

Lewis and Vogel both offered her a loan so she could buy a new one, which she declined, with emphasis.

It’s really because of all of that she refuses to buy a new car, just so she won’t hear any of the boys say “I told you so”.

But she has to admit by now what she’s doing with this car has very little to do with driving.

The car behind her nearly rams her at a traffic light when the car doesn’t start up in time.

Horns honk. Beth curses.

.

She gets through the front door still muttering curses, and drops her key into the designated drawer with a little more force than strictly called for.

“Bad day?”

“ _Shit!”_ she yells, spinning round. “ _Jesus_ , Chris, don’t do that!”

“I live here,” he points out with a smile.

“I thought you were at work.”

“Yeah, happy to see you too.”

She rolls her eyes. “You said you had tests running. What are you doing here so early?”

“Cookin - shit.”

He darts back to the kitchen just as Beth hears something boiling over. She grins and follows him.

“What’s for dinner, chef?”

“We’ll see…” he mutters, hastily removing a pot from the cooktop and turning down the heat. “What’s got you so riled up?”

“My goddamn car trying to kill me,” she replies.

She instantly gets the visual once-over. Shouldn’t have been so melodramatic, damn it, she _is_ living with a doctor.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, fine, just got the other drivers pretty pissed at me. Your pasta, Doctor.”

He turns back to the stove with a curse. She smiles and reaches around him.

“You turned down the wrong one.” She lets her hands come to rest on his hips and presses a quick kiss to his neck. “Need a hand?”

He smirks. “You talking ‘bout dinner or…?”

“I’m talking about the thing you clearly can’t handle on your own.”

His smirk gets wider. “That kinda really doesn’t answer my question, Beth.”

“I’m _starving_ ,” she whispers into his ear with a grin. “So, dinner. Or at least in that order.”

He laughs. “One of us has her priorities sorted. Take care of the salad, maybe?”

“Sure,” she lets go of him and starts rummaging through the cupboards in search of a chopping board. “We got dressing left?”

“Yeah, I bought new one, in the fridge.” He frowns at the sauce in the pan. “Hey, what’s your Mum always put in there?”

“Uh… Rosemary, I think. No. Marjoram?”

“I’ll go with rosemary,” he says after a glance into the cupboard. “That’s pretty much all we have. Is it normal to only have six spices?”

“Seven if you count the pepper,” she gives back with a shrug. “Let me just get plates-”

“Table’s set,” he replies without looking up, and Beth frowns. There’s a lot more planning involved in this dinner than usual.

“Okay. Wine?”

“On the table.”

If they’d ever done this kind of thing before, Beth might have wondered if she’s missed an anniversary or something.

“Look at that, I _can_ cook,” he says with a smile and hands her a spoonful of sauce. “Does this need salt?”

“No, it’s good.”

He’s not even _trying_ not to look proud. Nerd.

.

.

“Okay. I give up,” she says, smiling at him over her second glass of wine. “What’s going on?”

“Huh?” His innocent act has not improved since they were called out on their affair.

“Chris, we’re having _dessert_ ,” she points out with a laugh, waving her spoon at the chocolate mousse between them (admittedly bought at the supermarket, but still - _chocolate mousse_ ).

“So? Why can’t we? We haven’t had decent food for years.”

“Cut the crap, Beck.”

He leans back in his chair, grinning at her. “Yeah, you know what’s going on, Beth. You know.”

“Do I?” She knows her acting skills are only slightly better than his, but she gives it her best shot.

“Uh-huh. I had lunch with Lewis the other day.”

Beth smiles. “Really, _Lewis_ couldn’t keep her mouth shut?”

He shrugs and refills his wine glass. “I think she’s been playing matchmaker from day one, personally.”

“Probably.”

“So why don’t _you_ cut the crap, sweetheart, huh?”

“I figured I was probably supposed to act surprised. Isn’t that how this works?”

“How would I know how this works?” he asks, and for the first time he sounds nervous. “It’s not like I do this a lot.”

“I’m not going to make this easier for you, Chris. It’s kinda fun to watch.”

He shakes his head and takes another sip from his glass. It’s emptying at alarming speed, and it’s the third. She grins even wider. Going by the times she’s seen Chris drunk, she’s not sure how the liquid courage plan will work out for him.

“You can be really cruel, you know that?”

“Oh, _I_ can be cruel?” she gives back with a smile. “Coming from the man who kissed me after literally a year of painful sexual tension and then proceeded to decide _we really shouldn’t be doing this, let’s wait for like another effing year and a half, what’s the worst that could happen?_ Did I mention you were the first guy to actually _touch_ me in, like, two years? Just, FYI.”

He grimaces. “To be fair, I kept that up for a solid five hours.”

“I admired your resolve, if that counts for anything.”

“Gee, thank you,” he mutters, taking a great deal of interest in his wine glass. Usually, he’s the epitome of calm and self-sufficiency; she’s never seen him sit so uneasy in a chair.

She can’t help a laugh. “Wow. How is this worse than a Mars mission?”

He throws her a confused glance.

“I’ve never seen you look so nervous and, again, you _went to Mars_.”

“I didn’t have to do that on my own.”

“On the other hand, there was a sort of threat to your life.”

“There isn’t now?” he gives back, clearly trying to make it sound like a joke but she doesn’t really buy it.

It really astounds her that he thinks he has anything to be scared of.

She’s had a terrible crush on him months before they even began their mission, pining for him, goddamn it, she still can’t believe how he missed that. Her medical examinations twice a week were simultaneously the best and the worst part of her life up there - this coming from a woman who _hates_ getting needles stuck into her veins like nothing else. _She_ got that her feelings were clearly reciprocated (unlike their doctor who somehow managed to chalk up her elevated blood pressure and stuttering pulse to something other than himself for most of their first year). Knowing that had made the whole thing even worse for her, though - all too aware of how painstakingly professional he was around her, no small talk, every touch as light and brief as possible. She had caught every damn time his fingers lingered just a moment too long, and the way he’d bite his lip and mentally scold himself for that right after.

She would’ve thought that if all that wasn’t a dead giveaway, her behaviour when they finally let things take their course would be, but no. This man, whose IQ probably outdoes even hers and who _has_ to have more than enough experience with women, has proceeded to consider himself a casual fling of hers, and by the looks of it, a part of him still does, after all this time.

“You know I’m just messing with you, right?” she asks gently.

“I know. I also think there shouldn’t be this much metacommunication involved,” he answer with a feeble smile.

Beth rolls her eyes at that. This is exactly what she would call old-school, Melissa would call “horribly romantic”, Martinez “cheesy” and Watney “slightly sickening”. Chris’s enthusiasm for traditions in regard to his relationship clash strangely with his scientific mind sometimes, and with Beth’s.

Of course he would put himself through this misery, because _that’s just how this is done, Beth_ \- even though they’ve both somehow come to the conclusion they were in it for the long run, even though the topic of marriage has actually come up a few times. They’ve talked this through. But that won’t stop Beck. Of course it won’t.

“Fine then, take all the time you need,” she answers with a sigh. ”I’ll do the dishes-”

“Who cares, just leave it,” he mutters, and she raises a brow. Dr Chris Beck, condoning chaos? This _really_ is a special occasion.

.

.

They spend the next hour or so on the couch, just talking. Beth strategically bores him with a detailed recount of the new program she’s supposed to write for the upcoming Ares missions - she knows he’s got no idea what she’s talking about, but just as she’s planned he looks a lot more relaxed by the time the topic changes.

Her car comes up, too, and Chris declares “that thing is a menace and I shouldn’t let you get in there at all”, and for the sake of peace (and because she’s really being childish about it) she does admit she should get a new car.

She supposes her heart still clings to that old thing because it’s one of the few things left of her life before the mission. She moved out of her apartment before they launched, there was no point in paying rent for it while she was gone; she isn’t the person for keepsakes so the only other things she has are an outdated laptop and a bunch of faded, worn clothes that she’s gradually replacing.

But this seems like a good point to let the Chevy go.

It’s not like she _misses_ her old life.

.

“Hey, come take a look at this.”

 _Is that_ really _how you’re gonna do this, Chris?_ she thinks with a frown, but follows his voice anyway.

The tiny balcony off the bedroom - just big enough to fit two chairs on it - is one of the things she loves about his apartment. It’s not like the view from it is spectacular, but still, it’s sunny most of the day and at night, they have a pretty nice view of the night sky.

She is strangely relieved to not find it decorated - she is very sensitive to those clichéd scenes, and glad he hasn’t forced any of that stuff on her so far.

He’s leaning against the balustrade, apparently oblivious to the twenty-meter drop underneath, but that has never really surprised her - this man was unafraid climbing around on the outside of a space station where one moment of carelessness can easily result in floating off forever, what is the fifth floor compared to that?

“Look at what?”

He positions himself behind her, putting one arm around her waist, and points at the sky. “There.”

Beth frowns up at the stars for a moment before she gets what he’s pointing at - astronomy is much more his and Martinez’ thing than hers - then she laughs.

“Bastard doesn’t look so menacing from down here.”

“Can you believe we walked around on there?” he says softly, smiling.

“Yeah, I know, I can’t really get my head around that sometimes. Seems so long ago.” She leans her head back against his shoulder, eyes still on that slightly bigger star above them, and covers his hand with hers.

“Kind of is. Been a year and a month since we landed,” he replies. “It looks so tiny, took me like ten minutes to even find Mars.”

She feels a little dizzy when it hits her again that this guy has become a fixture in her life. _Of course_ he’d stand out here in the cold for ten minutes just to find that one planet and make her smile.

How did she get so lucky?

“Hey, Chris?”

“Yeah?”

“Now’d be a pretty good time, you know.”

He laughs a little at that. “Thanks for the input.”

She turns around and gives him a quick kiss. “No fucking speech, Beck.”

“As you wish,” he gives back with a little smirk, his right hand returning to his pocket as it has a lot this night.

“And _no movie quotes_ , oh my God, you’re hanging around Mark too much.”

He rolls his eyes at her. “Any other requests, Beth?”

She bites her lip, trying to fight down the big stupid smile. “I’ll shut up.”

The balcony is a little too small for the whole thing, and it’s pretty dark on it too, Beth has a plant tickling her back and she’s pretty sure Chris hit his foot on one of the chairs.

They both knew this moment was coming for a while now, and they’ve been waiting for it all evening, but she still has a feeling in her gut that resembles the loss of gravity at their launch and his left hand is closed around her right so firmly it almost hurts.

For a moment she worries she’ll be too nervous to even remember what he says to her.

She actually thought he’d ignore her warning and talk for half an hour, but he doesn’t, and she’s really glad about that because if he drew this out any longer she’d probably have a heart attack or something.

“I’ve been pretty sure I want to spend the rest of my life with you for a pretty long time, and I actually… I remember thinking that if something went wrong the day we got Mark back, I at least didn’t miss out on that bit. At least I was with the right person at the end. Pretty glad it didn’t come to that after all-”

Beth bites back tears. _Of course you’d make me cry right now, goddamn it, Chris-_

“Anyway. You were pretty much the only thing I was sure about when I thought about my life after the mission, and you kinda still are. You’re the best goddamn thing that ever happened to me, Beth, and there are about a thousand reasons for that, I’ll write you a list, we’ll have plenty of time… well, if… if you’d do me the honour of becoming my wife.”

She’s sort of happy she can only barely see his face in the dim light because even so her throat feels so tight she’s not sure if she can even speak.

“You could’ve had that answer a year and a half ago,” she whispers, her tears very much audible in her voice. “ _Of course I will_ , now get up, damn it-”

He laughs - or it could be crying, maybe both - and struggles to his feet, and his hands are shaking a little when she kisses him.

“I’m gonna need more light for the rest,” he whispers against her lips, and she laughs, then half-heartedly wipes her cheeks dry as they get back into the warmth.

Chris either hasn’t noticed or can’t be bothered to dry his own eyes, which just makes her smile even more.

His hands still don’t seem too steady and she sees what he meant when he said he needs light. The ring’s on her finger on the third attempt, and they’re both laughing a little too much at that.

“You really get this drunk on three glasses of red?”

He grins at that and pulls her closer. “Don’t really think it’s the wine.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“So. Details.” Melissa doesn’t try to hide the gleeful grin on her lips - it’s spreading all around the table anyway. They’ve been hungering for good news for a while, and _these_ good news especially.

Robert throws her an amused sideward glance.

Beck and Johanssen - maybe she should stop thinking of them like that now - exchange a fleeting grin, then Beth says:

“Pretty simple, really. He must’ve really held back.”

Beck rolls his eyes. “Very funny.”

“You at least take her out or something?” Martinez asks, the same spark in his eyes that Melissa doesn’t doubt she has.

“Thank God he didn’t, I would’ve _killed_ him if he’d done that in public,” Beth mutters and Chris shrugs.

“I tried to cook.”

Beth smirks. “Points for effort, Chris.”

“It wasn’t bad!”

“No, it wasn’t. I didn’t say that.”

“Really, do we have to drag it all out of you?” Mark is sitting in the quietest corner of the table with his back to the wall, but he seems to have completely forgotten about all the other people in the room for once. "Are you one of those people who actually calls the parents first? I bet you are."

Chris grimaces. "I had lunch with her Dad. Scariest two hours of my life."

Beth starts to laugh. "They didn't even tell me that!"

"He said not to tell your Mum," Chris replies, "that we'd best surprise her with it."

"Yeah well, going by her reaction I guess he was right about that."

"I wanna know what you said, damn it, this is the third time I'm asking-" Martinez interrupts with a mirthful smile on his face.

Again, Chris shrugs. “I was told not to make a speech. Think I did okay.”

Beth’s smile at that assures Melissa that _okay_ is a bit of an understatement.

“You never actually asked, though,” she says, still with that smile, and reaches for her glass.

“How d’you mean?”

“Well, I don’t think there was a question in it.”

He shakes his head at her. “Feel free to try and do better, Beth.”

“No, you did good, I’m just saying.”

Rick laughs. “You know, we should’ve always known we’d end up here, guys. You’ve been the most annoying cheesy old married couple _ever_ from day one.”

“Yeah, I think overexposure might cause diabetes,” Mark adds, grinning at Rick across the table. “Next round’s on me, maybe that’ll finally get you two to tell us something useful.”


	6. How not to keep a secret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had these scenes in my head and I'll admit I didn't do too great connecting them, but oh well. Enjoy!

“They still don’t seem like a couple to me,” says Robert and shakes his head. “I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them touch, like, at all.”

Melissa smiles. “I trained them well, Rob. I told them I was okay with it as long as it didn’t affect their work or life on board, and they kept it to themselves a damn lot better than I expected them to. But they do slip up, too, don’t worry. How d’you think I found out about them?”

Robert raises a brow. “You actually caught them-”

“Not exactly. Still, though, there was something different about them when they thought they were alone. You constantly hang around the same people, you see these kind of things, I guess.”

 

* * *

 

 

**I**

 

Beth likes watching him work, even if it comes at the expense of a needle in her arm. He looks calm in his concentration, and these moments during the examination when he’s in total focus are the only ones where he doesn’t look changed. His expression is just the same as it was in the examinations back on Earth, same as before they lost Mark, even when they thought he was dead, in these moments, Chris looked just as he always did.

It’s a reassuring constant.

The tourniquet is unpleasant as ever, and even though she’s getting used to it, it’s still a pain in the ass.

He catches on to that, of course, and throws her a sheepish little smile.

She’s pretty sure by now he would find a vein blindfolded, they’ve done this for what feels like a thousand times.

“I’m gonna have veins like a junkie when this is over,” she mutters when he loosens the tourniquet and gently pulls the needle out.

He throws her a dark look. “I do a little more accurate work than your average heroin addict, thank you very much. I’m alternating veins for a reason.”

Beth laughs and leans a little closer, covering his hand with hers. “That was a joke, Chris.”

He steps away from her with pained little smile. “Don’t, please. Long as you sit there, you’re my patient, okay? And I’m distracted enough as it is, so… let’s maintain our phoney professionalism.”

Beth grins. “Distracted, huh?”

He rolls his eyes and picks up a lamp. “Shush. How’s your head?”

“ _Fine_. I really don’t think that’s necessary every damn time I bang my head on some stupid part of this ship, Chris.”

“Sorry, not up to you.” He doesn’t look sorry at all. “Follow my finger. Okay, good, look at me.” He flashes the light at her eyes with a practiced flick of the wrist. “Looks alright.”

“Told you.”

He cleans up his workspace, smiling to himself. “Okay, I’m just gonna run the tests, you’re free to go.”

“No, I wanna watch,” she replies, getting to her feet, “I wanna see if the program’s still glitching.”

“Looked fine when I did Martinez,” he says with a shrug, “but I don’t mind company.”

“Yeah, I’m not in the patient chair anymore.” She smirks at him.

“Seriously, Beth? Your blood samples won’t process themselves.” There’s the hint of a smile in his eyes, despite the tone of his voice. He puts the samples in the centrifuge, then starts up the analysis program on the laptop.

* * *

She’s already round the corridor when she hears voices. Sounds like Johanssen is still in the sick bay. Melissa frowns and walks closer, wondering if there’s something wrong with their sysop.

Then again, Beck said he had computer troubles on the last blood tests. It’s probably that.

“That, there, see that? That number can’t be right.”

“Maybe it is, maybe I’m sick or something?”

“Beth, if your RBCC was that low, you’d be dead.”

“Oh, okay. What’s RBCC stand for?”

“Red blood cell count. Anyway, this number is bullshit, and I took the whole scanner apart last time, it’s not that. Gotta be the computer.”

So it’s really the computer issue again. The door is open, too, so Melissa figures she can go in.

Johanssen is sitting in the desk chair, which is odd, given that Beck is the one operating the computer. He has to reach around her to get to the touchpad, leaving her with little to no personal space. Again. Odd.

Christopher Beck is usually meticulously keeping a scarily appropriate amount of distance. She’s never met anyone that aware of how close they ought to be standing to someone, which she blames on an abundance of psychological lectures too early in life.

Johanssen doesn’t seem to mind, though. Actually, the way she carries herself looks more at ease than Melissa has seen her look in months. Even her voice sounds different, she can’t say how exactly, but it’s changed.

Suddenly, Melissa feels like she walked into something she wasn’t supposed to see.

“I’ll look into it, but I guess that might take a while. Can you do the others without that data?”

“It’s not exactly ideal,” he replies, leaning even closer to inspect the screen. His face is inches from hers now, but Johanssen doesn’t look the least bit fazed.

Melissa fights down an annoyed groan. This is just what she needed. _Brilliant_.

She thought she’d heard steps at night for a while now.

“But you’re obviously still breathing, so it should be fine for now. Be great if you could fix it soon, though.”

“It’s done. How hard can it be?”

“Don’t jinx it, Beth,” he mutters, pushing himself off the the desk.

 _Beth_. There it is again. When did he start calling her by her first name? Did she really miss that, or do they just do that when they’re alone?

Either way, it’s bad.

She has to do something about this, she can’t allow them-

Then again, who knows how long this has already been going on, and so far it doesn’t seem to have had a negative effect on the crew, or the work of the two of them.

In fact, if anything, they seem better. After they lost Mark, Beck looked like he wasn’t getting a minute of sleep at night, and Beth had that distracted, blank look on her face at times. And then, something like two months or so after, they’d suddenly seemed a whole lot better. Melissa thought they’d just started to come to terms with it, but this seems like a much more convincing explanation.

Either way, she doesn’t have to do anything _right now_.

“Doctor Beck?”

Her voice makes him jump, and the look on his face almost makes her laugh. Does he _really_ believe this looks innocent?

She can’t believe she let herself be fooled by such a terrible actor for God knows how long.

She forces a smile onto her lips as well. “I come for my bloodletting.”

“Yeah, right. Sure. It’s just… computer’s glitching again.”

“I can fix it, commander, but, um, not in the next five minutes.”

She decides not to tell them she heard all that. “Should I come back tomorrow?”

“No, it’s just one bit of data, everything else is fine. Johanssen can fix it later, I’ll make do without it ‘til then.”

“Okay, I’ll be back in an hour or something then.” Johanssen doesn’t look at him at all. They’re _terrible_ at playing inconspicuous.

“Thanks.” He throws her a fleeting smile and breaks eye contact too quickly.

_How did she not see this?_

“Alright, commander, sit down on there for me, would you?”

“I know the drill, Beck,” she replies with a weak smile, her mind still racing.

She eyes their doctor out of the corner of her eye.

Sometimes she forgets how young these two are. Johanssen turned thirty a couple of weeks ago, and he’s just a few years older than that. It’s easy to forget, with clowns like Watney and Martinez around, but he’s actually their second-youngest crew member.

While most people their age are in relationships or casually dating, they were both stuck in training at NASA. That, and the poor Doctor had it bad for Johanssen ever since Melissa can remember. He was a gentleman about it, surely, never acting on it one bit (a smart move, seeing as it would have probably got them both thrown out), but still. None of the crew members missed the way he looked at her - and Johanssen hadn’t remained oblivious to it for too long herself.

For some reason, Melissa hadn’t even considered that Johanssen might be the one to start something, but now she bets that’s exactly what happened, and she really doesn’t know why she didn’t think to give her the same talk she gave Mark and Beck.

The doctor’s handsome, smart, obviously, and he’s got a pleasant kind of humour. Plus, he has that undeniable calming effect on people.

If Johanssen is looking for comfort, Beck would be a good choice in a much bigger crowd to chose from.

Melissa sighs again. She should have seen this coming. She’s honestly trying to blame them, but in the end she just can’t. They’ve all been through so much by now, she honestly believes they deserve every last bit of comfort they can get.

Shame they have to get it by means she has explicitly forbidden.

 

* * *

 

 

**II**

 

When Vogel joins them at the table, it is nearly ten.

Melissa and Rick do their best to hide their amusement in their coffee cups.

“My alarm didn’t go off,” Vogel explains, brow furrowed, by ways of a “good morning”.

“I know,” Melissa replies, still smirking. “I had Johanssen turn it off.”

“Why?”

“Because I figured we could all do with a good night’s sleep.”

“Well, I am not complaining,” Alex says after a moment of hesitation and makes himself a cup of coffee as well. “Just tell me beforehand the next time. I thought I’d overslept.”

Rick laughs. “I didn’t even notice there was no alarm. I just got up and went, where the hell is everyone?”

“I figured I’d best not tell you because Beck would’ve totally set up his own alarm, and I think he needs sleep more than any of us, apart from Watney maybe.”

“You could’ve warned the two of us, though,” Rick says. “We wouldn’t have snitched you out to the doctor.”

“Well, you never know.” She leans back on the bench and turns her cup in her hands. “This morning is missing some decent coffee.”

“Definitely,” Vogel says and sits down across her with his usual sausage breakfast.

“You could at least _try_ the others, Vogel,” Rick says with a glance at Vogel's plate, shaking his head.

“What for? They all taste the same, and this one is the only one that at least looks like real food.”

“You eat sausages every morning at home, too?”

“No, that’s an _English_ breakfast, Martinez,” Vogel says and swallows a mouthful. “We have bread rolls for breakfast in Germany, and cheese and marmalade and honey and all that. Well, at least my wife and I. My children eat nothing but Nutella. Their mother isn’t happy about that, but what should one do? They don’t want anything else.”

“I think David would love that shit, too. Let’s hope he doesn’t get into it for another couple of years.”

“How old’s he now?” Melissa asks.

“Turned four a while back. Damn it, I missed so much of that kid’s life already,” Rick mutters, shaking his head. “Can’t wait to see him again.”

“Yes, missing the children is the worst,” Vogel says and holds up the coffee bags. “Do you want another one?”

“No, thanks,” Melissa says and gets to her feet. “I’m going to throw the rest of this lazy bunch out of bed now. Beck might have a heart attack if he loses any more time of the day.”

“That might be true,” Rick says with a laugh. “You take Watney, I’ll wake the rest.”

“No way, Martinez, you would have far too much fun that way. You go get Watney.”

Rick grins sheepishly. “Yes, ma’am.”

 

They’re still fast asleep when she opens the door of Johanssen’s quarters. A little smile plays around Melissa’s lips - she was right, they _did_ need extra sleep.

It really is lucky Johanssen is this small, considering how tiny these bunks are, but by the looks of it they have worked out the logistics of it all right.

For a moment, she is strangely touched by the way they’ve fallen asleep, how protective it looks - Beck’s face pressed against her shoulder, both her hands buried in his dark hair, her head resting against his.

She wonders how much it helps, to have someone try and protect you from the nightmares.

There really isn’t a gentle way to wake them, so she clears her throat and, when nothing happens, adds a cheery “Up and at ‘em, guys.”

For a moment, they hardly shift at all, Beth’s fingers slowly untangle from his hair, then Beck sits up so quickly it makes Melissa and Beth both flinch.

“What time is- _fuck!_ ” He blinks into the light and climbs over Johanssen’s small and still fairly still form. “Sorry, commander, I could swear there was no-”

Beth starts giggling into her pillow, which shuts him up mid-sentence.

“What?”

What makes Melissa crack up is that he actually glances down himself, apparently to check if he’s wearing trousers.

“She asked me to turn it off,” Beth gets out between giggles, “so we could get some extra sleep.”

“What the-” Beck’s hair is standing up on one side, and his blue eyes still are a little hazy.

He looks like a startled puppy, Melissa thinks, which does nothing to finally stop her laughing.

“You can’t just turn off my alarm, Jesus, I have a patient to check up on!”

“A patient that’s been in your care for a good three months who’s not just gonna die out of nowhere just ‘cause you didn’t check on him for ten hours-”

“Yeah, I’ll be the judge of that,” he mutters and throws Johanssen a dark look.

“Don’t worry, doc,” comes Martinez’s voice from the hallway. “Your patient’s breathing, I didn’t check his pulse but he’s walking and all… I’m obviously not an expert, right, I’m just a little pilot, but I’d say his heart is okay.”

“Hilarious,” Beck mutters. “How’s about you all clear out and let us get dressed or something?”

Rick’s smirk widens even more. “Sure, just don’t take all day, you two.”

“You know, for most people, jokes get old after a while, Rick,” Beth mumbles, pulling the sheets up to her nose.

“Yeah, not this one,” Rick says and laughs.

“ _Out_.”

Melissa smiles. “Listen to your doctor, Martinez.”

 

* * *

 

 

**III**

 

“This is it, guys.” It’s not that she feels like giving a speech, but it feels inappropriate to not say anything. “We’re going home.”

“Yeah. Can’t believe it,” says Rick with a wide smirk.

“Yeah, well, I can’t fucking believe it, either.” Mark looks a little dazed, like someone’s knocked him over the head.

“I can’t wait to see my family,” Vogel says with a smile.

“Me too. And as soon as they let us out, I’m going to take them to get a cup of actual coffee.”

“And food that hasn’t been freeze-dried and pulverised.”

“Hell yeah, something that’s not potatoes.”

“I feel like I can’t even remember what they look like,” Johanssen says suddenly, in a very quiet voice. “My parents, I mean.”

Everyone falls into an uncomfortable silence, until Mark says, without taking his eyes off the table top: “Yeah, same here.”

“It’s normal,” Beck says after a moment, in his best _trust-me-I’m-a-doctor_ voice, but not looking at either one of them. “It’ll come back to you, don’t worry.”

“Anyway,” Melissa says, getting to her feet, “we should get everything ready. Oh, and - don’t forget your coms, guys. Best put them in right away.”

“Yes ma’am.”

 

“Hey Chris, hold up a sec.” The voice is muffled, but not enough to mute the conversation. Probably in Johanssen’s pocket. Well, those mics are pretty damn good.

Melissa’s hand is halfway to her ear, trying to give them a little amount of privacy, when she realises she can’t take the earpiece out anymore. Houston will be trying to contact them any minute. _Goddamn it._

“You okay?”

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t know, I’m… I’m kinda scared.”

“I think we all are.”

“It’s just so weird… d’you realise we haven’t spent a day apart in four years? I mean, except for Mark, but still-”

“I know. We’ll be alright, Beth. That, and they’ll have psychiatrists jumping all over us, they’re not gonna let any of us freak out.”

“Oooh, great, psychiatrists. Love those.” She sounds a little calmer, though. “Still. Gonna be _really_ long month.”

There’s a moment of silence, then Beck says in an upbeat voice that only sounds a little fake: “You know, next Sunday, just round nine, I think I’ll get myself a late coffee.”

She laughs at that. “We ran into each other all the time at that coffee machine.”

“Yeah, well, addicts, am I right?”

There’s a long pause. _At least we don’t have a video feed as well_ , Melissa thinks grimly. Vogel still looks just as uncomfortable as she is feeling even though he's taken his earpiece out the moment they started talking. So has Watney, after they’ve thrown him enough pointed glares, but she and Martinez can’t do that – and Rick doesn’t seem to be too sorry about that.

“Couple of weeks and we can do whatever we want.”

“Uh-huh. Piece of cake.”

Beck laughs. “You’re full of shit, Johanssen.”

 _Enough,_ Melissa decides and reaches for the controls to the ship's communication system. She didn’t want to interrupt them because once they land, they really won’t be seeing each other for a while – but she knows they don’t plan on revealing their little secret to their employers any time soon, and the longer they keep talking, the higher the risk someone at Houston will catch their signal and hear something they're not supposed to.

“Mind your language, Doctor Beck, we might already be on air,” she says sharply. She sees Rick’s eyes widening and Watney’s lips forming a handful of silent swear words. They might poke fun at Beck every chance they get, but they don’t want their crewmates in trouble any more than Melissa does.

She can just picture the look on their faces when they realise the whole crew just heard every word of that conversation, which makes her grin despite herself.

“Sorry. Thanks for the heads up, commander.” Oh yes, Beck doesn’t sound too comfortable.

“Come up here and get into position, both of you.”

“And hurry, we’re gonna enter atmosphere pretty soon,” Martinez adds, his smirk almost audible in his voice.

“We’re on our way, calm down,” Beth mutters.

Watney and Martinez exchange a glance, a nearly identical grin on their faces.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you even have Nutella in the US? It seemed like such an American thing to me, I didn't even think about that. Well, wikipedia says you do. The things you google for fanfic, seriously...
> 
> In case you noticed I did not adopt Vogel's way of speaking the way he is in the book - yes I finally finished the book - that's because I'm German and I take insult in the way he talks. Like, seriously, this is the one thing that bugs me about that novel. If his English is good enough to be sent to space and to COMMUNICATE WITH GODDAMN NASA AND SCIENTISTS ALL OVER THE WORLD, then his English is good enough to have his programs set to English, and to speak in complete, correct sentences, and most of all to not reply IN F***ING GERMAN to half the questions he's asked. No German in their right mind would speak English but stick to the "ja". It was clichéd and made poor Vogel seem pretty dumb and in case you can't tell it made me kinda angry, so here's me fixing that issue. Because this his how an educated scientist from Germany would really speak English, maybe get a saying slightly wrong or speak in a slightly stilted manner, but IN CORRECT AND NORMAL ENGLISH.


	7. Should've Known Better

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mazzawitz asked me to write something about how they got together and I realised I've written myself into a bit of a tight spot there, because I kind of contradicted myself in the last two chapters, so I hope this makes it work ^^

* * *

_[early on, NASA training centre]_

 

“Whoa, steady.” Someone catches hold of her arm before she can lose her balance for good.

She hasn’t seen this guy before, but given the fact that he’s in this area means he’s bound to be part of the mission.

So, most likely another crew member. She’s met the pilot, Martinez, and the chemist, Vogel; so this must be either the botanist or the doctor.

The hand is gone before she can be quite sure it was even there, but he’s still eyeing her in a worried way. Not surprising, really - the room is still spinning around her, and she’s pretty sure she’s swaying slightly.

Damn that stupid simulator.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, sure,” she mutters, trying to covertly finding something to hold onto behind her back.

He smirks, which she has to admit looks pretty good on him. “Right. You gonna throw up on me?”

Her eyebrows dart up. She would call that rude, but the tone of his voice is perfectly friendly. “I don’t think so?”

“You know, this wouldn’t be the first time -”

“The first time a girl threw up on you?” she gives back with a laugh.

That brings a startled look to his face for a moment, then he sighs. “That’s not… that came out wrong. Sorry.” He throws her an apologetic little smile, and holds out a hand. “Hi. I’m Chris. I’ve had a really, really long day, and I’m not usually rude like that.”

 _Chris_. Christopher Beck, then. The doctor.

She returns the smile a little wobbly and shakes his hand, not strictly speaking long enough. His eyes are blue, she notices, and they’re a little confusing. Like, blue eyes should not be warm, right, that’s not how colours work.

“Beth Johanssen.”

“I figured,” he replies.

“Do you always introduce yourself like that?”

He grimaces. “No, there’s… well, there’s usually a very impressive MD and a full name and I also usually speak in coherent sentences.” Another little grin plays around his lips again. “And, by the way, yes, I have had girls throw up on me. You try working at a hospital.”

“Fair enough.” She shrugs and looks down. Meeting new people makes her uncomfortable, new people in general, and this feels especially awkward.

“A coffee usually helps,” he says after a moment, turning to his bag on the ground and rummaging through its contents. “Against the nausea, I mean.”

“I’m _not_ feeling sick. Doctor,” she says, rolling her eyes. “And you really don’t need to tell me about what coffee does, I have a deeper relationship with coffee than with most people I know.”

Belatedly, she realises that might not be such a good joke after all.

But again, he grins and, damn, this guy might be a problem in the near future.

“Okay, so you’re going to be the one I get to lecture on caffeine? There’s always one.”

“Give it your best shot, Beck, you can’t convince me.”

“We’ll see.” He picks up his bag, having dug up the car keys from its depth, and pushes his hands down his pockets. “Guess I’ll see you at the meeting tomorrow.”

“Yeah, looks like we’ll finally meet the whole crew.”

“Good to meet you, Johanssen.” There’s a very slight pause before her name, like he’s trying to decide how to call her.

“You too.”

The doctor leaves, and Beth dutifully steers towards the coffee machine with a cringe.

Oh God, that was awkward.

 

* * *

_[a few years later, in space]_

 

Johanssen’s not in her quarters. Their sysop usually sleeps like the dead, but lately, she seems to get less and less sleep (even though he’s pretty sure he still holds the record for shortest sleep per night himself).

He asked her if she’s having nightmares, she said no. He told her not to lie to him, at which she just stopped replying to his questions altogether.

Beck sighs and swings his legs back out of bed. It’s not like he’s going to fall asleep anytime soon, and besides, he is secretly looking forward to these moments at night.

He knows he shouldn’t, he knows the only reason they spend so much time together is because they’re both grieving and both struggling to cope. It’s wrong to enjoy this.

If she was okay, she’d be asleep right now, and he should want that.

She’s sitting in the gym, leaning against the wall with her knees hugged tightly to her chest, staring out of the window.

When he comes in, she looks up and throws him a wobbly smile and he tries really hard to convince himself she wasn’t waiting for him.

“Hey. Can’t sleep?”

He returns her smile. “That’s not news, is it?” he asks and slides down the wall to sit next to her, close enough for their shoulders to touch if he leaned just an inch closer.

They sit that way for a while now, night after night after night, and he’s not sure if it’s pleasure or torture to be that close to her for so long. Some nights, she’d rest her head on his shoulder, but his hand does not move. He’s very tired, and he’s not sure if he could stop it moving before it goes somewhere it shouldn’t go.

“You okay?”

“Sure,” she mutters, still hugging her knees. “It’s just that when I go to sleep I’ll hear him again. So maybe it’s just better not to.”

He sighs. “How many times do I need to offer you the pills until you take them?”

“When will you take them?”

“I think it’s - it’s dangerous to prescribe stuff for myself, you know. Like, who’d have an eye on me, on what I take, it just… it doesn’t seem like a good idea.”

“You should, Chris,” she says. “Really. We need you awake.”

“Yeah, well, we need you too. If you don’t program this ship, nobody will.”

She sighs and stretches out her legs, her head falling onto his shoulder. “Okay, so we’re both not taking it, then. Worth a shot.”

“You wouldn’t dream, Beth. It would knock you right out.”

She gives a non-committal sigh, then says quietly: “Don’t you have any _fun_ stories, Beck?”

“No ma’am,” he says with half a smile. “I’m just a boring doctor conducting experiments on mice in zero gravity. Very boring results, too… like, for example, blood pressure is different out here, and the most exciting thing you get from that is that viagra would be a tiny bit less effective in space. You know, because the arteries that swell up for an erection wouldn’t get the exact same amount of pressure anymore. I’m sure the pharmaceutical companies will be _really_ interested in that information. Or not.”

There was a time when he tried to look good in front of her, but by now he’s given that up. She sees right through him and anyway bragging was never his strong suit, and if he can make her laugh, that’s more than enough reward in his book.

Beth grins. “Okay, that wasn’t bad. I’m losing my respect in you, Doctor Beck.”

“Yeah, this is the kind of meaningful work I do up here.”

She laughs again, shifting her head into a more comfortable position. “Listening to doctors talking about this is so weird. Like, most people avoid these topics, and then you sit at lunch with two doctors having a conversation about dissecting corpses _while eating_ , and they don’t care.”

“I had a couple of friends at med school who once spent the whole train ride from New Jersey to New York discussing STDs and their effect on genitals, I mean, loudly. We grossed out everyone else on that train, but we kind of only noticed that when we got off.”

She still doesn’t seem to be lying comfortably, and then suddenly she shifts again and rests her head on his lap, close to his knees but still. Jesus.

“It’s weird how people can get so numb on a topic.”

“We don’t go _numb_ , we know about taboos, we just don’t mind talking about it amongst ourselves-” He can hear himself stuttering slightly, which is pathetic, but who could blame him?

The last sexual encounter he’s had with anyone other than his hand was a good two and a half years ago, and cooped up with her in this goddamn tin can for so long, it takes far less than that to throw him off track.

He used to have a lot more control over his thoughts.

“Oh, really, you don’t go numb?” She grins up at him. “So you’re telling me you could still get turned on by just the names of things, like someone saying ‘vagina’? Could you?”

_Jesus, Beth, don’t go there. Don’t go there because you have no idea -_

He hesitates for a moment, then says very slowly: “Maybe.” His voice sounds alright. He’s prouder of that than he should be.

“Be serious, Beck. You know I’m right.”

“No, you’re… I could. Not easily, but I might.” He knows she won’t believe that, and in a way, she’s right. Because these words, they don’t work on him anymore. He can’t remember if they ever have, but they don’t anymore.

But it’s still not a lie.

Because yes, he could get turned on by someone talking about that - it just had to be the right voice saying it. And he is not going to say that out loud, so while he hates lying to her, this is as close to the truth as he’ll get.

“Liar,” she says with a smile, then adds, still looking him dead in the eye: “You really believe that, you’re gonna have to let me try some day.”

That catches him completely off guard.

This time, his voice sounds very off. “Beth-”

“You can’t tell me you still don’t see it, Chris. You’re not stupid.” Her voice is different, too, very soft. She’s still looking at him with those beautiful big brown eyes that throw him off the rails every damn time, and he can’t string a coherent sentence together at all.

“Jesus, Beth…” He leans his head back against the wall so he doesn’t have to look at her.

 _Think of something bad_ , he thinks, feeling like a teenage boy. God, this is _pathethic_.

He ends up thinking of Mark, which makes him feel sick with guilt, but it does sober him up a little.

“What could happen?” She’s got a hand on his knee now. “We’re literally in the middle of nowhere. No one needs to know.”

“It’s not about the consequences,” he says through gritted teeth. “It’s that we were told not to, and besides, I… I’m your doctor. I gotta take care of all of you all. It wouldn’t be right. Wouldn’t be… ethical.”

Her hand doesn’t move. Her warmth radiates through the fabric of his sweatpants, and it suddenly seems nearly impossible to think about anything other than that.

“It would help you sleep, you know?”

God knows he’d like that, and God knows it’s not the thing he’d like most about it…

“Beth, don’t...”

“You’re the most uptight person I’ve ever met in my life,” she says with a little smile, turning onto her back, which means her head moves up his thigh. He takes two attempts to swallow.

“And I took the geekiest courses there are.”

“I’m not uptight, I-”

“You are.”

“No, I’m… I just don’t want…” He’s stammering again. What the hell is wrong with him?

What he wants to say is _not this way, I want to make this right_. And even in his head that sounds sappy as fuck so he’ll sure as hell not say that out loud.

“Don’t bullshit me. I know you a little. I’m not stupid, either.”

He exhales very slowly and deliberately. “Beth, please… please don’t. Please just….” he takes hold of her hand and moves it away from his leg. “We got too much on our plate.”

“I’m trying to take something _off_ your plate, Chris,” she murmurs, linking her fingers with his. “You know it would help, so let me help.”

“Listen-”

“No, you listen, I don’t care. What’s the worst that could happen? _Fuck this,_ I don’t care.”

“I care,” he says softly.

“I know, Chris. But you don’t see that you’re the _only one_ who does.”

She sits up, and he doesn’t get his act together quickly enough to reply.

So she leans over and presses her lips to his and he doesn’t stop her.

(Which is a euphemism for “grabs her with both hands and pulls her onto his lap”.)

They shouldn’t be doing this. He doesn’t want things to go this way. He doesn’t want them to end up being each other’s sleeping pill.

But still.

(It’s something they tell you about. That you can feel deprived of human contact in space, that touch feels like a drug to you. And, Jesus, that has never been more true. Whether it’s to do with space, or just a general lack of intimacy in the past couple of years, or her - he thinks it’s her - either way, he was only high that one time but as far as he remembers it felt just like this.)

He buries a hand in her blond hair, which is softer than it has any right to be and slips through his fingers like silk. She’s so small, and maybe it’s the decreased gravity but she weighs almost nothing there on his lap.

The skin on his neck is prickling where her fingers are, and he feels very dizzy.

“Beth,” he murmurs, slowly and very reluctantly pushing her off him just a tiny bit. “We should really, _really_ not be doing this.”

She laughs a little. “You’re too damn noble for your own good, Chris Beck, you know that?”

“Right now? Hell, yes, I know that,” he mutters with a wry smile, trying to avoid her eyes, which at this proximity is nearly impossible.

“You don’t have to do that to yourself. I think Lewis wouldn’t really mind, you know, she just has to inforce a little Army spirit around here.”

“It’s not just about Lewis.”

She shakes her head and leans her forehead against his shoulder. “Okay, then don’t do it to me. You make me feel stupid, begging for it.”

She’s still on his lap and she’s warm and soft, and he keeps his arms where they are and holds her there.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” he mutters into her hair.

They sit like that for a while, until she climbs off his lap and gets to her feet. “Well, you know where to find me. If you change your mind.”

He leans his head against the wall and sighs deeply.

A cold shower would be a good idea right now.

 

 

Four hours later, he’s up again, in the medbay with literally nothing to do, ranging and re-ranging his supplies.

Well, if he thought he couldn’t get any more sexually frustrated, he was clearly very wrong about that.

He shoves the saline solution back to the left side of the shelf.

They sent condoms, which is paradox. But then again, it makes sense in a way. Better safe than sorry.

The sight of that box is doing nothing to help him.

Maybe the saline was better off on the right after all. He shoves the bottles back.

“You’re up early.”

He freezes, eyes still on the shelf. “ _You’re_ up early.”

She comes in and closes the door, locks it behind herself. “Hey, about last night-”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Look at me, Beck, I’m talking to you.”

Her voice is a little harsh, and he feels a pang of guilt. _You’re a fucking coward, Chris._

She looks as tired as he’s feeling, and far too beautiful to stomach this early in the morning.

“I _am_ mentioning it.”

Chris leans against the counter with a sigh. “Okay. D’you want to talk about it?”

“No, that’s not what I had in mind.”

He smiles. He put up a valiant effort the night before, and it was exhausting, and he’s too tired to do it again.

 _Screw this._ They’re tired, and miserable, and God knows he’s wanted her for a long time now, and in the end, she’s right. They’re the only ones who’ll have to know, and in the end, they’re probably the only ones who’d care either way.

Besides, he could do this to himself for a while longer, but Beth… she’s sad and she’s lonely and like all of them she has a bad case of cabin fever, and if can do anything to relieve her of that than he will. He misses her smile, the pre-mission smile.

“Either way,” he says slowly, “I’m game.”

“That’s some romantic line,” she says with a smirk and steps closer.

“Yeah, I know, very proud of it myself.”

“You’re an idiot,” she mutters, then she’s pushed him against the counter, her body pressed against his, her lips less than an inch from his. “You really are.”

“Maybe.” His body’s responding to her alright, and this time he doesn’t try to fight it down. “But I just found something very interesting.”

“Not interested,” she whispers, her hands wandering up his back underneath the shirt, and kisses him, _really_ kisses him, not as careful as the night before. He’s oddly aware of his heartbeat.

For the first time in two months, he feels properly awake.

“You will be,” he murmurs against her lips, smiling a little.

“Do you ever stop talking, Beck?”

“Eventually.”

“How about you show me more of that?” She pulls off his shirt with some effort, laughing.

“Uh-huh, that’s the general idea,” he mutters, grinning back, and steps around her, “but I need to get to that cupboard.”

“Now? Really?”

“Not what you think. NASA took care of every eventuality,” he says with a smile and holds up his finding.

Her brows rise in surprise. “Nice of them.”

He could sink in those eyes, he thinks dazedly. He feels a little drunk (another first in over a year). Hormones are a great thing sometimes.

He takes a deep breath and pins her against the countertop, reverting their initial position.

She pulls herself onto the counter top to be on eye level with him.

“You seem nervous,” she whispers, her lips brushing against his jaw.

“I am,” he replies flatly. Of course he is, goddamn it, it’s been so long. How is she not nervous?

There’s a smirk on her lips now. “It’s not your first time, is it?”

His brain takes a moment longer than usually to come up with a halfway witty reply to her shitty tease.

“No, it’s not, I’ve been nervous before.”

That makes her chuckle against his neck. “Nice dodge.”

He lets his hands travel up the small of her back and helps her out of her shirt. He is not up for that much teasing, not with his self-control slipping as badly as it is. “Remember what you said about less talking, Beth?”

Her legs wrap around him and she smiles, then her lips are back on his, and her breath is stuttering just a little. Maybe she is nervous too after all, which is comforting, because he feels like he might have a heart attack.

 

 

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

He looks up at her. The blueish light of the digital clock on the wall makes her skin look even paler than it usually is.

“They’re going to compare the stock to your log, right?”

“What?” he says with a frown. He’s had less than half an hour to get his act back together, and he’s quite obviously not there yet.

“Your medical supply. You’ve got to log what you take out, right?”

“Yes?”

“What are you gonna tell them about where the condoms went?” she whispers into his ear, her voice a little hoarse and full of barely held-back laughter.

“Em.” Actually, he hasn’t given that any thought yet. He’s also really distracted by her use of plural.

“Well, um, I have no idea. But on the upside, I still have a few months left to figure that one out.”

Beth stifles her giggle in the pillow. “No, seriously, what are you gonna say? One of the test mice escaped and ate them?”

“Yup. Why not?” He shrugs. “I could just blow something up in the cupboard and say it was Vogel and that it, you know, tragically destroyed a few supplies.”

She really starts to laugh and he gently covers her mouth with his hand. “Shh, Lewis is sleeping next door, remember? Really thin walls.”

She _actually licks his palm_.

“For your information, that has no effect on a guy you’ve slept with,” he whispers, grinning, but takes his hand away.

Beth rolls her eyes at him. “Yeah?” she asks with a dangerous little spark in her eyes and crawls on top of him, her lips back on his before he has any idea what she’s doing. 

He wonders vaguely if this will ever stop making his head spin like that. He sort of hopes it won’t.

“How’s that?”

“That’s… slightly more effective,” he replies faintly.

“You’re a shitty liar, Beck,” she whispers, smiling, and settles herself against his side again. “How the hell are you going to keep this from Lewis?”

“I was in the theatre club in high school,” he argues, his breath still slightly out of sync.

“Oh my God, of course you were.” She links her fingers with his and closes her eyes. “How long til the others wake up?”

“Hour and a half,” he mutters with a glance at the clock. “We should try and get a little sleep.”

“They can’t see me in here, Chris,” she whispers, but makes no move to get up.

He edges a little closer to the edge of the bunk to make more space for her and runs a hand through her hair. “Seriously. Get some sleep. I’ll wake you in a bit.”

She smiles for a moment, eyes still closed, then grips his hands tighter. “Wake me if I start screaming or anything, okay?”

He bites his lip. So he was right about the nightmares, then. He puts an arm around her. “Okay.”

She sleeps quietly though, that first night, and Chris eventually dozes off for half an hour or so. It’s the first time in weeks that he doesn’t wake up feeling exhausted and cold.

He could kiss her just for that.

(He does.)

 

* * *

_[another year later, back on earth]_

 

“Doctor Beck?”

He turns away from his crewmates to see one of the NASA guys, he’s been trying to keep his name for days now, but it doesn’t stick.

“Yes?”

Goddamn it, what’s the guy called?

“Sorry to disturb you,” what’s-his-name says with an apologetic smile towards Watney and Martinez, “it’s just a silly little - I have a question about your log.”

“Sure. What’s the problem?”

The NASA guy squirms uncomfortably. “There is a… discrepancy between the log and the supplies, it’s really no big deal but you know what it’s like…”

For a moment, Chris is mostly confused - he’s kept that log meticulously, hasn’t he - until…

_Oh fuck._

He has no idea what to say. Jesus, he forgot all about that. He’s got to stall until he comes up with something...

“Something’s missing?” he asks innocently (clearly he’s still not very convincing because Martinez turns to throw him a questioning look).

“Uh, yes.”

The guy’s uncomfortable about it. Good. Maybe he’ll just drop it.

“Drugs? I could swear I-”

“No drugs, no, just…” He blushes slightly and glances at his clipboard. “Again, it’s not really important, but I have to… because there’s protocol about relationships between...”

Martinez is still looking from Chris to the NASA worker.

“There was a… a pack of condoms on board?”

Chris fights to keep his face blank. “Yes, there was.”

“Well, it’s… it’s almost emptied.”

It dawns on him he could just point out how stupid it is to ask him to prescribe condoms like medication, but before he can open his mouth to reply, somebody else cuts him off.

“That was Watney, sir.”

“What?” Mark and Chris ask in unison, turning to stare at Martinez.

“Oh come on, Beck,” Rick says with a little smirk, “just because we left him on Mars doesn’t mean you have to cover up for his stupid pranks.”

“I’m -”

Rick theatrically puts an arm around his shoulders and steps on his foot with force.

“Sorry, man,” he says to the NASA guy who looks as confused as Chris is feeling, “Mark’s a hero and all, but he’s like five years old sometimes.”

Suddenly, Mark is grinning, too. “It gets boring out there. And if I have something to make water bombs, I will damn well make water bombs.”

Chris fights the urge to bury his head in his hands.

The NASA worker appears to be thinking along the same lines. “Um… okay.”

“Yeah, that would’ve sounded sort of bizarre in my log,” Chris says slowly. “So I… just left it out and kind of hoped no one would notice?” The guy doesn’t look convinced, so he adds with a lopsided smile: “I couldn’t snitch him out. I mean, we did leave him on Mars.”

“Right.” He throws Mark a shaky smile and clutches his clipboard more tightly, his face bright red at this point. “I think I’ll just… drop it, then. Again… sorry about that.”

They watch him go, and nobody says a word for a while before Martinez tightens his grip around Chris’s shoulders and says with a wide smirk:

“You owe us, man. You owe us big.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't take credit for the "I've been nervous before" btw, saw it on tumblr on incorrectthemartianquotes and couldn't resist.
> 
> Also, I know... tragical lack of smut. So sorry. I try, but what I've written sounded sooooo stilted and I decided to do what I do best - skip the action. Yay for me. Hope you enjoyed it anyway ;)


	8. Choosing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um. So. I'm actually working on a totally different chapter set WAY earlier in the timeline, but that one is taking FOREVER, and then I just remembered this little idea that I had a while back, so I thought, y'know, since this hasn't been updated in a while, you would probably appreciate a little snippet, and it's not like I'd had much of a working timeline to begin with, so... have this little post-wedding pre-baby snippet (that so many people have already written better than me, but whatevs), hope you'll enjoy it!
> 
> (Also, this fic needs a better summary. If anyone has any ideas, please help me, I have literally no idea what to put.)

“How’s _Anne_?”

He frowns. “I don’t know, Beth… Don’t think it fits very well.”

“I kind of like the sound of like it.”

“ _Anne Johannsen_. That’s kinda hard to say, right?”

In that moment, it dawns on her what was going so fundamentally wrong with this conversation in the last five minutes.

“Why would she get _my_ last name?”

Chris looks seriously confused now. “I don’t know, I just – you didn’t take my name, so I figured it’d be that way. The kid gets the mother’s name.”

“The only times I know of that the kid got the mother’s last name, the parents weren’t together.”

“No, I thought the kid _usually_ gets the mother’s name unless the parents have the same name. We don’t. So she gets your name.”

“I don’t…,” Beth frowns. “I don’t know. I assumed she’d automatically get yours, you know, ‘cause we’re married. What are the rules for this?”

“I think we can choose which one she’ll get,” Chris says slowly, but doesn’t look too sure himself now. He ends up getting his phone out and googling it. “Yup, we get to choose.”

She groans. “Great. So now we’ll have to choose her last name, too? The first name was enough responsibility for me, and we only have two more months.”

Chris smiles and replies in the calm, soothing tone he’s had to adopt around her too often lately: “Don’t stress, Beth. I don’t think it’ll matter to her either way.”

She sighs and stares into her tea cup.

“I _like_ the idea of her having your name,” she says after a while. “I mean, seeing as I didn’t change mine… I didn’t really _want_ to keep it, you know, and it’s not like I was trying to make a big statement by not changing it. It just sounds so stupid.”

He grins. “Yeah. It does. Doesn’t keep my colleagues from getting it wrong half the time, though.”

Beth rolls her eyes. Just last month, she got introduced as _Beth Beck_ by Chris’s boss, and the time after that he straight up went with _Mrs. Chris Beck_ because he “was never going to get that one right anyway”.

“Besides, I never liked my name when I was little. Nobody ever knows how to spell it, they got it wrong on all sorts of diplomas and we had to get _everything_ reprinted, it was so annoying. It’s impractical as hell for someone learning to write, too, I’ll tell you that.”

He seems to consider that for a moment, then says slowly: “I guess I just… I don’t want to make you an outsider in your own family, you know? It’s annoying enough everybody either gets it wrong or assumes we’re not married.”

“Well, one of us is going to be the minority from now on,” she replies gently. “I’m too excited to feel like that’s a bad thing, and again. Your name is better for every practical reason I could think of, _and_ I like it better.”

He doesn’t look convinced. “We _could_ give her both names,” he suggests feebly after a while.

“Hyphenated?” Beth asks and raises a brow at him. “First of all, that’s even worse when you’re trying to find your name on a list, secondly we’d have to decide whose name to put first, so we’d be back to square one-“

“And we both hate that idea, I know,” he adds with a lopsided smile. “Just reminding you it’s an option.”

“I don’t want that, and you don’t, either, right?”

He sighs and refills his coffee cup. “Nope, that’s about the last thing I want. Look, I don’t really care whether or not she’ll have my last name. It’s not like I’ll need a reminder she’s my daughter. I just figured you might like her to have something from you.”

“Like _I_ need a reminder?” she bites back irritably and immediately regrets it. _God damn it. Blame it on the hormones._

He throws her a pointed look. “I did _not_ mean that, Beth.”

“Yeah, I know.” She glances up and down the list on her laptop for a while, until something catches her eye. “What if we called her Johanna?”

He turns that around in his head for a while, then smiles. “She’d sort of have both our names that way; that _is_ kind of cool.”

“ _And_ that way we don’t have to worry about naming her after anybody else we know.”

Chris laughs. “Yeah, I didn’t want to admit how much I _don’t_ want my kid to be named Melissa, but… I just really don’t like the name.”

“Exactly,” she answers with a shrug. “It’s a bit of a cop-out, but we’d be in the clear. And she _would_ have something from me, too, that way. I like that.”

 “She’s _your_ daughter, with any luck she’ll be your carbon copy.”

Beth grins about that. Hand it to Chris to wrap a compliment into a throw-away line like that. “Yeah, we really wouldn’t want her to be, you know, annoyingly smart and good-looking or anything, better hope she’ll take after me.”

Her husband raises a brow at that and reaches for another toast. “Because _nobody_ ever applied any of these adjectives to you, right?”

 “Beside you and my parents, no.”

He shakes his head at her, a proud little smile tugging at his lips. “Maybe we’re just the only ones you listened to, Beth.”

“Maybe.” She types out the name on top of her list. “So, is that our final word on it?”

“I’m good if it is,” Chris says, then grimaces and adds darkly: “Until anyone asks if she’ll have a _second_ name.”

“Oh God,” Beth groans and leans her head back against the wall. “Where does this _end_?”


	9. Solid Ground

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one, it's been sitting in my drafts FOREVER.

“Christopher, open that door because I bought you coffee and it’s getting really fucking heavy!”

Chris scrambles off the bed with a curse and a grin on his lips and opens the door.

“That’s one way to greet your long lost brother, Amy,” he mutters and takes the coffee tray from her. “You said you wouldn’t be here before eleven.”

“Yeah, I thought I’d come early, bring coffee, since you wrote about nothing else than the terrible stuff at NASA,” his sister says with a smirk and hugs him tightly. “And a very good morning to you, too, little brother.”

Chris rolls his eyes at that. “I hope you’ve eaten something, ‘cause I’ve got nothing here-”

Amy reaches into her bag with a grin. “I got you, brother. I bought muffins. So this is where you live, huh?” she asks and casts a mocking look around the tiny apartment where NASA has lodged him for the first month.

“This is where I won’t live for a day longer than I have to,” he replies. “Not that I’m not used to living in a shoe box, but this is like the dorms at university all over again.”

Amy raises a brow. “At least you don’t have to share with someone, and as far as I remember the dorm was much grosser.”

“Yeah, because by now I know how to clean the floor,” he gives back with a smirk.

“Either way, today you’ll be out of here, right?”

“Thank God.” He sits down on the bed and hands her a coffee.

“You sure you don’t need any help fixing your place up any more? Mum and I just did a little cleaning, if you need anything else I could take a later flight-“

“No, thanks, Amy, just help me with the last boxes and… the crew can help me with the rest. I’ll have to meet up with them again in the afternoon anyway.”

“Okay,” his sister shrugs and takes a sip from her cup. “Then drink your coffee and update me on your space adventures.”

“My space adventures,” Chris repeats with an uneasy smile, “right, on that note-“ He looks up at his sister and adds impatiently: “Just… have a seat somewhere, you don’t have to stand around there like that.”

Amy sits down on his untidy bed with a grin. “Okay, Chrissy, I know that look on your face. Spill.”

“ _Don’t_ call me that,” he mutters, throwing her a dark look. “Um, about lunch on Sunday, would it be okay if someone else comes? I’d really like the two of you to meet.”

“Chris...” His sister evaluates the tone of his voice for a while, then throws him a cautious look and slowly says: “I know you’ve been up there for a while, but could you _please_ keep whatever you’re doing and whoever you’re doing it with to yourself?”

He sighs. “Amy, it’s not like that-“

“You’ve only been back a _month_ , and hardly out of this place, so I’m kinda failing to see how it isn’t,” his sister replies drily and takes a bite out of her muffin.

Goddamn it, how can he be thirty-five and still blushing trying to introduce his twin sister to his girlfriend?

“Well, um, the whole thing’s been going on for a while longer than that.”

His sister’s blue eyes pierce him the way only Amy’s ever could. He was never the one to keep secrets from the family, that has always been her thing, but still – ever since they were children, Amy got any and all secrets out of him.

“Okay. Christopher, you better start talking.”

“I’m not moving back into my apartment alone. I… I would have told everyone back at home, but, well, we’re not sure if NASA would let us keep our jobs if they found out, so-“

“Hold up, Jesus, Chris,” Amy stutters and holds up a hand to silence him. “Get to the point, please?”

He grimaces. “Well… you remember Beth Johanssen, right?”

His sister is silent for a moment, then she laughs. “Oh my God, are you trying to tell me you had an affair with a crewmate?”

“Um, _have,_ and… yes?”

“That was the girl you had such a terrible crush on during training, right?” she asks with a smirk, then adds: “More to the point, are you seriously telling me my little brother had an affair _in space?_ You actually _had sex in-_ “

“God, Amy,” he says with a laugh, burying his face in his hands. “That’s grown-up.”

“What, it’s a legitimate question,” his sister insists, still giggling.

“Um, well, _obviously_ , and what happened to _we don’t discuss things like that_?”

Amy grins. “Hey, we were sixteen when we said that, and I didn’t know you were going to end up looking like _this_ ,” she waves a hand towards his face, “with all my friends asking me to pass them your number, and me ending up a sorry old spinster. I didn’t know _you’d_ get the better stories to tell.”

“Okay, now the spinster bit is just a lie, and I liked that arrangement, personally,” he pouts, but his sister’s smirk just widens even more. “So that’s against the rules, then? You two?”

He shrugs. “They’re mostly worried about the stability of the team and all that, I guess, and I’m not sure that it’s an actual written rule, but it was a rule the commander had and I’m pretty sure everyone else wouldn’t be happy about it either, so yeah. Sort of.”

“And Lewis didn’t notice…?”

He grins. “We tried to keep it secret but… it’s a small ship. And she knows us all so well, so of course, she totally noticed, and just let us keep sneaking around everyone for a while like complete idiots.”

Amy smirks. “I’m guessing you deserved that.”

“Probably.”

“So, how pissed was she when she found out?”

He finishes his muffin and brushes the crumbs to the floor. “Well, we were one room short when the heating started to act up, so she figured it was actually a good thing. I mean, at least we’d volunteer to share a bunk. She did take the pleasure of outing us to the whole team herself, though.”

“I told you I liked that woman.”

“Won’t hear me say a word against the commander,” Chris replies with a smile. “Anyway, I need you on your best behaviour, sis. I’m planning on keeping Beth around, so play nice.”

“Hey, I’m always nice.”

Chris raises a brow. “To my girlfriends? Right, of course.”

“I _am._ Liar,” Amy gives back drily, gets to her feet to bin her cup and points to the boxes in the corner. “We’re taking all of them?”

“Yeah, all two of them.” He gets to his feet and cleans off the remaining cup and paper plate. “Told you I could’ve done that myself.”

Amy ignores that and tries to lift the topmost one. “ _Please_ tell me we have a car to move these.”

“I’m working on the car, for now I’ve called a taxi.”

Amy peers inside the box and shakes her head. “You can cart your heavy-ass collection of textbooks downstairs yourself, Chris. I’m taking the other one.” She puts her long hair into a ponytail and takes up the smaller box. “So, you _plan on keeping her around_? How long are we talking?”

“As long as it lasts,” he gives back with a shrug and struggles to push down the door handle with his elbow. “What are you grinning at me like that for?”

“It’s cute,” she says with a wide smirk. “Haven’t seen you have a crush on someone like that since high school. I can’t believe you maintained that all this time.”

“Cute? I’m thirty-five, Amy.”

“I know, my birthday happens to be on the same date, you know? And it’s still cute. Our level-headed master surgeon and his adorable crush on his colleague. Oh God, you should’ve heard yourself, like… I was trying so hard to hate you for those phone calls, but it was so adorable. It was like watching a sitcom or something. I was _rooting_ for you. This is awesome, I can’t wait to tell Mum-”

“You won’t tell her anything, Amy,” Chris says hastily. “I know you, you’ll make this sound – I’ll tell her myself. Also, you really gotta keep this to yourself for a while, I don’t wanna get myself in trouble _now._ ”

“Okay. But you’ll bring her on Sunday?”

“If you promise to _be_ _nice,_ Amy,” he repeats exasperatedly. “Boxes first, though. Taxi’s waiting.”

 

* * *

 

 

“I suppose you guys all know why you’re here,” Mitch says with a smile. “Annie wanted to call in a press conference straight away but we decided to give you a little more privacy.”

He looks just like them right now, Beth thinks, exhausted and a little absent-minded but happy. Martinez high-fives Vogel, the commander leans against the wall with a sigh. Chris smiles faintly and throws her a quick sideward glance.

“So, please remember that just because we let you go home every night that does not mean you’re not required to get check-ups-“

“Oh, not you too, Mitch,” Martinez groans, a beaming grin on his lips.

“Yeah, that’s Beck’s mantra,” says Mark, causing his doctor to throw him a pointed look.

“I wouldn’t have to remind you if you’d just go without discussion.”

“But you already fixed me up,” Mark says with mocked petulance.

The doctor is not amused. “Haha. Can’t fix a wreck like you in that short amount of time, Watney.”

Mark smirks and raises his hands in defence. “I know, I know, you’re a doctor, not a miracle worker.”

Half the people in the room groan and put their head in their hands, but Chris just raises a brow.

“Star Trek, Mark? Really?”

“Also, if he’s Bones, what does that make you?”

Mark shrugs. “Scotty. I’m the mechanic.”

“He did get abandoned on a lonely planet in the reboot,” Vogel points out with a grin and Mark nods enthusiastically.

“See? That’s why I like you, Alex.”

“Guys? Guys!” Mitch is starting to look a little exasperated. “So, again, we’re letting you out, but once again, we expect you all here for work and your check-up Monday morning.”

“What about Watney?” asks the commander and Mitch and Mark sigh simultaneously.

“Mark still needs medical supervision.”

“Is that really necessary?” Lewis inquires, turning to Chris who gives a helpless shrug.

“He’s doing great, given the circumstances,” he says reluctantly, “but I won’t question the medical team’s judgement, and well, you know, better safe than sorry.”

Mark grimaces but nods. “They’re letting me out during the day, commander. It’s better than nothing, and you know, they know best.”

“The decision is made, Lewis, I’m sorry,” Mitch says. “Oh, and Annie said to remind you that if you show yourselves in public, it _will_ be all over the internet so whatever you do, try to make us look good. Might be a good idea not to get plastered in the next best bar. And for god’s sake, gentlemen, we all know how long you were up there but if any of you is on the front page tomorrow in a strip club or something – I will not judge you but I _will_ let Annie rip your head off without interference.”

“Mitch, since I’m the only male in the room who gets to go home and isn’t married,” Chris says slowly, “you will have to tell me someday how you got _that_ image of me.”

“Um,” Mitch says blankly, blinking at the doctor who leans back in his chair with a smirk.

“Ignore him, Mitch,” Mark says with a wide grin, “he looks like a choir boy-”

“…but by now we all know he ain’t one,” Martinez finishes and wiggles his brows at Chris.

He rolls his eyes. “Jesus, I can’t _wait_ to get out of here.”

Beth and Lewis share a half-annoyed, half-amused glance, then Beth turns to Mitch.

“Okay, any other rules, besides _no hookers_ , Mitch? And I think it’s sexist to exclude me from your warning. _I’m_ not married.”

“Oh, so if I don’t assume the first thing you do once you get out is find a call boy, I’m being _sexist_?” Mitch asks with a frown.

“I think I’ll forgive you,” Beth gives back with a grin.

“Nothing I could think of, just be back here on Monday,” Mitch replies. “Anyways, guys, behave, then you might get Annie to back off, and we’d sure as hell all love that.”

Mark smirks. “Bring me a souvenir, guys.”

Vogel, Beth and Martinez slip out of the door just after Mitch, and Mark leaves with a grin that only looks a little fake.

Lewis looks Chris up and down. “What happens with you now? I want to know the plan. We can’t cover for you forever, if this gets out it might get the rest of the team in trouble as well.”

“In a couple of weeks, we’ll let someone take a picture of us somewhere. If people ask, we can tell them that, you know, we had a crush on each other during the mission and got together here. _After_ the landing,” Chris says.

The commander nods. “And everyone maintains plausible deniability. I like that. You have a place to stay?”

“I still have my apartment. My sister and my mum touched it up for me, should be more or less inhabitable.”

“Johannsen staying with you, then?”

“Yeah, for the time being, anyway.”

Lewis smiles. “Good for you. Go home. I will _right now_ , thank God, can’t wait.”

Chris smiles feebly. “I actually have no idea what to expect. I feel like I’ve forgotten how to live a normal life. I honestly can’t tell you if I’ll find the way back to my apartment.”

The commander seems to sense what he’s _really_ worrying about though. She has that annoying knack of seeing through them.

“Don’t worry,” Lewis says gently and hugs him. “You two’ll be just fine, Beck.”

“I hope so,” he mutters.

“Shut up and _go home_ , Chris,” she repeats with a laugh. “You’ll be alright.”

  

* * *

 

 

Beth drives on the parking lot – she’s only been here once before, but the bumpy concrete is enough to take her back.

His car had been to the shop because of something something brake discs, and when he’d asked her to give him a ride home she had panicked a little, but not suspected anything. She had also failed to register Mark dramatically dropping a stack of space suits in the background as well as Martinez’s pointed look in Chris’s direction. Even during the – awkwardly silent – drive, it hadn’t occurred to her that literally _everyone else_ lived closer to Chris’s apartment than she did. She’d been much too preoccupied with the weird pause between her parking the car and him getting out, during which they both stared fixedly through the windshield and tried to pretend they didn’t notice the crackling tension in the air between them.

(Obviously, that evening went down as one of the most embarrassing moments in her recent years.)

She takes forever to get out of the car herself this time, and on the two-hundred meters to the front door she feels like she’s wading through water.

Up to this point, she has managed to ignore the small, nagging voice in the back of her head, the worry if the things she had in space would survive the breach of atmosphere. But now that she is back in front of that same, plain block of apartments, it seems impossible to not ask this question. Can she just assume things stay the way they were? Maybe, just maybe, space is one thing, and earth and mundane everyday life, quite another…

It feels so strange being back – nothing on earth quite looks the same to her anymore, except for this place, and this is the one thing she has somehow _expected_ to change. It used to be a stranger’s home, and now it isn’t; but it looks just the same and irrational as that is, that frightens her.

Lost in thought, she spends an undefined amount of time rooted to the spot, staring at the doorbell, before she manages to jerk herself awake.

_Don’t be stupid, damn it._

She shakes her head about herself, takes a deep breath and after another brief moment of hesitation, she rings the doorbell.

The answer comes almost instantly, so quickly she wonders if he’s waited by the door – she wouldn’t really put it past him.

“Hi.”

Strangely relieved to hear the familiar sound of his voice creaking through the intercom, she steps closer to the microphone, a grin tugging at her lips.

“Hey, I made it. Sorry I’m late, I…,” she hesitates for a moment, then adds a lame, “just wanted to give you a chance to clean up your shit, you know?”

 _I stood around in the parking lot for a while because apparently I’m an insecure fifteen year-old sometimes,_ is what she doesn’t say.

Chris, being Chris, has probably heard both.

“Give me a moment, I’ll come down, help you with your stuff.”

She grins. “Chris, I have _two_ bags, you don’t-”

“Gimme a second.”

With that, the connection cuts off. Beth rolls her eyes and leans against the wall. “Yeah. My hero.”

It takes him considerably longer than a second – to her, it feels like at least half an hour until he appears behind the glass front door. He looks strange in T-shirt and jeans; she doesn’t think she’s ever seen him in anything other than NASA-blues and blacks.

“Hey.” His smile sits uncharacteristically uneasy on his lips.

The last time she stood on this parking lot, she’d been supposed to drop him off and drive home. She hadn’t been supposed to stare at his lips or make embarrassing, completely random attempts at small talk or wait around on the parking lot until she saw the lights go on in his apartment just so she’d know which one it was.

She’s done all of these things, and had driven home just sort of hoping he hadn’t noticed any of it.

Trying to reconcile this memory with the idea that she can kiss him now, just like that, right here on this goddamn stretch of concrete, if she wants to – is a lot more difficult than it probably should be.

“Hi,” she replies and throws him an awkward smile, then holds up the plastic bag in her hand. “I brought pizza, I didn’t know if you-” her voice trails off when she realises she has no idea where that sentence was supposed to be going.

“We should get inside, I think I’ve seen a few people with cameras lurking around here somewhere earlier,” Chris says and extends his hand in an offer to take one of her bags.

“I got it,” she mutters and hands him the bag with the pizza instead. “Fifth floor, right?”

He throws her a surprised sideward glance and she realises she just gave herself away. Damn it. He never told her that.

“Yes. Elevator’s that way.”

As the doors shut, he throws her another cautious look, and it takes her a while to realise he’s waiting for her to react badly to enclosed spaces.

Ever the doctor, she thinks, and has to think of Mark likening him to McCoy. She’s seeing it now.

“Let me be the one to address the elephant in the room,” he says with a slightly forced smile as the get out and make their way across the hall. “Is this weirder than it should be?”

“Kind of,” she replies with a little laugh. At least she’s not the only one who feels like she was on an awkward high school date, then.  

“Well, it’s not like we haven’t worked through _weird_ before,” Chris mutters and fishes the key out of his pocket, which makes her laugh a little – God knows he’s right about _that._

“C’mon in, then.” He pushes the door open and lets her pass. “Sorry, the light’s broken; I couldn’t find a spare bulb.”

The hall is small and windowless, but there’s a warm yellow glow coming from the frosted glass door opposite the entrance.

She puts her bags and her jacket on a drawer next to the door and puts off her shoes before standing around undecidedly in the semi-darkness.

For a while, they’re both silent.

“Do I get a proper greeting?” he asks then, not sounding quite as off-handed as he’s probably trying to, which gets a smile back on her lips.

“I just… needed a moment to get over myself,” she mutters, shaking her head to herself. “Yeah. You do.”

Only when she notices how different it feels to stand on the tip of her toes, she realises she hasn’t once kissed him in normal gravity. She hasn’t been able to get him on his own at all for the last two weeks, and because of how closely they were being watched (for their own well-being, but still) they might have not been alone together at all. The only thing they’d dared to do was talk, in whispers like two kids plotting a prank on a school trip, and a brief hug was about as far as they risked going.

She’s missed him, and she’s missed any sense of familiarity about her life, any sort of constant. She’s missed _him,_ long story short.

That kiss tells her he’s been the same, and that finally brushes the awkward feeling away. For the first time since they’ve landed, she doesn’t feel strangely out of place.

They stand there in the darkness for what are probably ten minutes, just leaning into each other, completely quiet. She finds that she enjoys that stable feeling – gravity has its perks.

Good to know.

“I fucking _missed_ you,” he whispers, and she smiles and presses another kiss to his lips.

“I know. Me too.”

He brushes a strand of her behind her ear and grins. “Okay. Pizza.”

“Sounds good.”

He takes her by the hand (that feels strange for a moment, until she realises they’ve never done that, either – not _ever_ ) and leads her through the glass door. The kitchen is small and simple, a fairly new-looking kitchen unit, a small table with two chairs and two big windows. They don’t offer much of a view, but she stands in front of one for a moment anyway and looks out on the parking lot. It feels strange, looking down instead of up.

“Wine?”

She grins. “We haven’t had a drink in actual _years,_ Chris. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

He shrugs. “Didn’t say it was. But I think I want a glass.”

“Fine, I’m in.” She gets the pizza out of the box. “I think that’s cold now.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll put it in the oven for a few minutes….” He opens the cupboards and frowns. “I have no idea where my stuff is anymore.”

She laughs. “We’ll get there. That looks like plates.”

“Right. God, that’s embarrassing.” He shakes his head, grinning, and hands her two plates. “Okay, I’ll go get the wine, you try to find a knife or something?”

She even finds a corkscrew by the time he gets back with a bottle of red and two glasses.

“I think my mum rearranged everything,” he declares, shaking his head, and crouches down to fiddle with the oven. “So I even fail at living in my own apartment. I don’t think I’m gonna survive earth after all.”

Beth grins. “Mitch will probably get someone to tutor us, so…”

“True. Or that shrink gives out _another_ helpful leaflet.”

“Yeah, you’d think he had to meet a quota of how many of these he gives out or– oh God, Chris, that’s not how you fill a wine glass!”

“Is that too full?”

“ _Yes!”_

“Alright, I’ll take that one.”

She nods. “I’ll pour my own, thanks.”

He leans against the counter with a grin and takes a sip. “Mark and Alex never stopped going on about beer, but I kind of missed _this_.”

“Snob,” she mutters, smiling. “You at least still know where the fridge is?”

“Yeah. That one.”

She puts the bottle in – the fridge is frighteningly empty, which is saying something coming from her – and spins the wine in her glass. “I like your place.”

“You haven’t seen much of it.”

“Well, do I get a tour while we wait?”

“Right. Sorry.” He goes back into the hall, again linking his fingers with hers. She could get used to that. “That door’s the bathroom,” he nods towards the door to their left, then takes her through the right one. The living room is fairly spacious compared to the kitchen. The moon shines through another big window and Beth notices a vase full of fresh flowers on the couch table.

“Your mum really made an effort.”

“Yeah, you don’t even know – half of that stuff wasn’t here when I left, like the blankets and the pillows and all that, she always complained how empty my place was. I guess she took the opportunity.” He smiles. “She did good, though. It looks much better.”

Beth glances over the books on the shelf and grins. “Are these _all_ textbooks? Do you have no private life or is this to impress visitors?”

“Haha. There’s belletrist stuff, too, see? I even kept my old comics.”

“I wouldn’t have pegged you for a comics guy,” she says and takes a closer look at the titles. “I had some of these, too.”

“Yeah, I’m not _that_ much older.”

She grins. “Not _that_ much, no.”

He pushes the last door open. “Nothing much to see here. Um, balcony’s through there… There’s literally like ten things in the wardrobe, and most of that doesn’t fit anymore…”

“I’ll need new stuff, too. I only have the clothes from NASA,” she says with a sigh, ignoring how awkwardly he tries to talk about anything _but_ the bed in the middle of the room, and opens the door to the balcony. The view isn’t exactly spectacular, same as the kitchen’s, but someone (her guess is Chris’s mum) has put a few plants, a small table and two chairs on it as well as a small lantern.

It’s a nice place, despite the fact it chiefly overlooks a lot of concrete.

“Well, that’s all, really,” he says, then adds a cautious “the bed’s not very big, so if you want I’ll sleep on the-“

“Seriously, Chris?”

He shrugs and throws her a sheepish grin. “I had to at least _offer_ it-“

“Alright, that bed is like three times the size of that stupid bunk and that worked out just fine, and no, I don’t want you to sleep on the couch,” she says and rolls her eyes. “You really need to ask that?”

His smile widens a little. “Yeah. Thank you , though,” he mutters and gives her a quick kiss. “I _was_ looking forward to sleeping in my own bed.”

She smiles back. “Glad we settled that. I think we should get back to our pizza before it turns to coal.”

“Oh shit. Yes.”


End file.
